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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28289556">Scandal Sheets</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lowflyingidiom/pseuds/lowflyingidiom'>lowflyingidiom</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Media Relations [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), On The Way To A Smile: Final Fantasy VII</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Barret’s Terrible Dad Jokes, Canon-Typical Violence, Crack Treated Seriously, Fluff, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, Inspire!Reeve, M/M, Slow Burn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 23:54:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>33,660</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28289556</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lowflyingidiom/pseuds/lowflyingidiom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>With the collapse of Shinra state media, a flood of independent publications have hit supermarket shelves. The tabloids in particular have taken off - recently "uncovering" a secret affair between the new WRO Director and the former leader of AVALANCHE.</p><p>The entire thing is ridiculous, of course. But at least they can laugh about it... right?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Reeve Tuesti/Barret Wallace</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Media Relations [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2250435</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>73</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Many thanks to my lovely beta reader SandyMoonCat, without whom this would be a far less polished and more neurotic endeavor. </p><p>I promised myself that I wasn't going to have two incomplete stories on the go at the same time, but here we are. Because sometimes we all need some unrepentant fluff.</p><p>Liberties taken with the On the Way to a Smile timeline, mostly assuming that Barret's chapter covers only the first half of the time between the OG and Advent Children.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Barret rolled into Junon tired from two weeks in the field helping the WRO to clear monsters out of the old Mythril Mines. </p><p>The work was hard with few comforts to go around – barely easier than the harrowing trip through the very same monster-infested caverns with AVALANCHE the year before. Contacted about the job because of his experience in Corel dealing with closed underground spaces and reading the dangers there, he’d agreed to go and keep the cadets safe. Train them to handle it on their own.</p><p>In spite of the rough weeks, he’d barely stopped by his small flat near the port long enough to drop his gear and grab a quick shower before heading for the WRO headquarters. </p><p>When he’d made his way to the top floor of the bustling hub (a place he was beginning to find welcoming, in spite of himself – something he’d never expected to feel about a repurposed Shinra building) Reeve’s assistant waved him into the office without slowing him down except to shout a greeting. </p><p>If it had been good to get back to Junon, it was also good to see the friendly face behind the desk, the WRO Director looking up and breaking into a wide smile when the sound of someone entering turned out to be Barret. </p><p>“I didn’t expect you until tomorrow,” Reeve greeted him, getting to his feet and meeting Barret halfway across the room with a back-slapping hug, “How are things out East?” </p><p>“Your people are comin’ along just fine, Cat,” Barret answered, crossing to drop into one of the chairs across from the desk and sighing as he sank into the supple leather. Attention to detail. That was Reeve all over. </p><p>The man in question followed, taking a seat on the edge of his desk in a rare show of informality (less rare than Barret had initially thought, all things considered, although he was beginning to think that he might be one of the rare recipients of Reeve’s unguarded moments, along with the rest of the former AVALANCHE). </p><p>“No Cait Sith today?” </p><p>“He knows you’re here,” Reeve answered, then paused with a faraway expression Barret had learned meant he was traveling along whatever internal pathways took him to the cat, “He’s convinced some of the interns to drag a string around for him. He’ll be up when he thinks you’ve been snubbed long enough for leaving town so long.” </p><p>“<i>Just</i> like a real cat,” Barret shook his head, but felt the beginning of the kind of easy smile that had felt so hard to come by since Meteorfall and the destruction of Midgar.</p><p>“I rather think he’s been taking advantage of it these days,” Reeve agreed, “But-”</p><p>His phone rang and he frowned, offered Barret a shrug before hopping from his desk and reaching for the receiver. </p><p>After listening a moment his frown deepened and he circled the desk, trailing the phone cord behind him as he went to sit down.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Barret, I have to take this one,” Reeve’s frown deepened, but waved him toward the sideboard where scotch and tumblers were waiting, at the same time hitting a button to connect the call, “Hello, Ambassador, what can I do for you?”</p><p>If it had been someone besides Reeve – or even if it had been Reeve as Barret had known him the year before, fresh out of the ruins of Shinra and uncertain how to move forward – he might have thought it was a power move. They’d moved beyond that a while ago, however. </p><p>Barret had been furious with him, then – the man representing some outlet, some direction for the anger he still felt when he thought about everything Shinra had taken from him, from his family, from the planet. Had been furious with Reeve for the danger he’d represented to Marlene – the threat of her time as a Shinra hostage preoccupying his mind, and the powerless rage that had grown from it finding an available target in the little cat that had forced its way into AVALANCHE. </p><p>He’d even been angry after Marlene had been released but continued to talk about being held by Shinra as if she had been away at summer camp. Barret had learned only later that both the release <i>and</i> Marlene’s good experience had been the direct effect of Reeve’s hand in matters, and Barret had been forced to make peace with the idea that Marlene loved the man – almost as much as she loved the cartoonish cat that accompanied him and capered for her amusement at every opportunity. </p><p>From there, it hadn’t been a long path to forming a grudging respect for the former Shinra Director... an admission that maybe Reeve was doing his best in a bad situation, just like the rest of them. </p><p>Friendship had been slower, but in the end Reeve was hard not to like – gentle mannered with something steel beneath it, determined enough to take up the reigns to put the world back in order. Ready to listen to more than the almighty gil while he was doing it. </p><p>From there it had become... almost too easy. To work with – not for, certainly not <i>for</i> – the WRO. For Barret to fall in line with Reeve, given free range to pursue his interests (provided those also served the interest of the planet – they did) and occasionally acting as a precision instrument where a larger WRO force couldn’t handle a job. It had become comfortable. Friendly, on his trips back to HQ between contracts. Good, knowing there was a familiar face happy to see him every time he got in from the road – the way that Reeve would (almost always) clear his day’s schedule in favour of an afternoon of scotch and cigars and a full debriefing on the state of affairs in the wider world seen from something besides an official document.</p><p>Barret suspected sometimes that Reeve missed it - being out taking direct action, even if it was from behind the eyes of the bizarre, semi-autonomous cat. Some part of himself that found outlet only in the surreal, over-the-top good nature of his other self. </p><p>There was a sound of a drawer opening and Reeve withdrew a yellow legal pad, grabbing a pen with the hand not holding the phone. As it became clear that Reeve was getting irreparably sucked into a long and dry debate about tariffs on overseas WRO equipment, Barret got to his feet and wandered over to pour himself a scotch. He glanced over to where the WRO Director was looking increasingly upset about the phone call while scribbling frantically along with the conversation, and poured a more generous portion into a second glass. </p><p>He carried the second glass over to the desk, where it was beginning to look like Reeve was rather in need of it - frowning and pinching the bridge of his nose with the phone pinched between his ear and shoulder, free hand still moving madly across the paper. Reeve accepted the tumbler with a grateful smile, although he set it aside quickly in favour of continuing to keep notes in time with the phone call. </p><p>Barret fetched his own glass then leaned to side-sit on the edge of the desk where Reeve had sat earlier, half listening to the one-sided conversation while surveying the desk. </p><p>His attention was drawn to a large stack of newsprint in the corner inbox looking oddly out of place among the multitude of legal-sized documents around it. </p><p>When after a stretch the phone call still showed no signs of coming to an end, he reached out and grabbed the top paper, turning when Reeve made an abrupt choking noise. </p><p>The man waved wildly at him with the hand holding the pen, making <i>put that down</i> motions and looking distressed. </p><p>Curious, Barret glanced down at the paper in his hands and immediately understood. </p><p>It was one of the many tabloids that had been emerging in the vacuum left by the end of Shinra propaganda and state censorship, papers printing any number of invented scandals and purported secrets of the world’s organizations and public figures. </p><p>The one in his hands proclaimed <i>WRO DIRECTOR CAUGHT IN ILLICIT AFFAIR WITH FORMER MEMBER OF ANTI-SHINRA RESISTANCE!!!</i></p><p>He felt his eyebrows climbing up his forehead of their own accord as he unfolded the paper to reveal a full front-page photo of himself and Reeve. </p><p>From the corner of his eye, he could see Reeve making increasingly frantic gestures while trying not to drop either the phone or the thread of the conversation. </p><p>He grinned, and made an elaborate production of examining the photo. </p><p>It was clearly made by some kind of photo editing. Not least because he was <i>very</i> sure he would have remembered posing for photos with Reeve in a scene much better suited to be the cover of a very specialized variety of romance novel - the shirtless man that was supposed to be him standing like some heroic conqueror with the “Reeve” kneeling suggestively at his feet. The faces were right, most likely taken from a real publication at some point, but everything from the neck down was hilariously wrong. They’d gotten his skin tone wrong (<i>of course</i>), and the gun on his arm was clearly a prop designed by someone who knew he had one, but had no idea what it looked like or how it was supposed to work. The man at ‘his’ feet was far too small and under-built to bear any real resemblance to the actual Reeve Tuesti – but the image was striking, for all of that. </p><p>He was just getting ready to <i>OPEN TO PAGE 3 FOR FULL COVERAGE!!!</i> when something large bounced off his chest and fell to the ground at his feet. It was the note pad that Reeve had been writing on. </p><p>Barret looked over to the WRO Director in time to catch the man saying, “I’m sorry Mr. Ambassador, but something urgent has come up. I’m going to need to call you back.” </p><p>Reeve dropped the phone into its cradle looking extremely flustered, “Barret, I can explain.” </p><p>“Damn, I hope so,” Barret grinned in the face of Reeve’s discomfiture, “Thought a classy guy like you would have at least bought me dinner before taking me all the way to page 3.” </p><p>He flipped the paper open to the specified page and held it up helpfully for Reeve’s perusal while the man made a noise of distress.</p><p>“My PR people dropped them off,” Reeve groaned, “They started showing up last week. Apparently one of the interns decided to make some extra money on the side by tracking our meetings and... uh...” </p><p>“Pet names?” Barret supplied when Reeve trailed off. The second paper in the pile boasted the story <i>AVALANCHE LEADER’S PET “CAT”?? SCANDAL IN WRO LEADERSHIP!!</i></p><p>The headline was accompanied by a photo presenting Reeve wearing fuzzy cat ears. That one was rather well done, Barret thought. </p><p>The real Reeve looked like he’d rather be falling through the floor than having a conversation about it, and Barret took pity on him, dropping the papers to pick up Reeve’s scotch and press it into his hands. </p><p>“You look like you need this.” </p><p>“... Thanks,” Reeve downed the glass in a way that Barret was pretty sure was a travesty in light of the bottle, then slammed the tumbler onto his desk, coughing.</p><p>Barret took the glass from him and went to refill it. To be friendly. And because their friendship was new enough it was probably best that Reeve not notice exactly <i>how</i> funny Barret was finding the entire ordeal. </p><p>He directed his laughter toward the counter as he poured out another measure of liquor. </p><p>“You… don’t seem angry?” Reeve ventured when he had fully finished coughing. </p><p>When Barret turned back, the man’s color was <i>almost</i> appropriate to someone who had just gulped down a full glass of single malt. </p><p>“Bit weird,” Barret agreed, bringing the refilled glass back to him, “But it’s pretty funny, isn’t it?” </p><p>“Hilarious,” Reeve’s mouth twisted wryly as they clinked glasses before making a show of <i>sipping</i> from the second glass, “At any rate, it’s being taken care of. The intern has been let go, and the publishers have been contacted regarding the printing of anything too... ahh... <i>damaging</i> if they have no evidence.” </p><p>Barret hummed into his drink, “Worse things for people to be talking about, you know, after everything we did.” </p><p>Reeve sighed, and offered a nod of acknowledgement, “Well, we can’t undo any of that. Just have to keep fixing what we can...” he cleared his throat, and the threatening melancholy was replaced with a forced levity, “Anyway, a delegate was just kind enough to bring some great cigars with him when he came from Mideel. Indulge with me?”</p><p>Barret accepted a cigar from the box Reeve produced (excellent, as promised), and let himself be drawn into their now-familiar pattern of drinks and camaraderie while he debriefed on the progress getting the Mythril Mines back into operating condition.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Two weeks had passed since the incident with the papers, and Reeve’s pride had just about bounced back from that particular embarrassment. His PR people had told him to let it slide, that it was hardly the worst things that could have been printed, all things considered. That at least the association in question wasn’t <i>actually</i> a contentious one, no matter how the tabloids were trying to spin it. And while he could agree with them logically, it still felt particularly fraught in light of how valuable his new friendship with Barret was becoming to him. </p><p>It had been such a short time, really, since they were on far distant sides of a major ideological divide, since they had barely missed destroying one another, and half the world along with them. Whatever else their growing peace might be, it could still be fragile – making Reeve wary of anything that might shake it. </p><p>The issue was all the more salient as he was scheduled to meet with the government of Edge regarding relief and rebuilding efforts – a task that was already weighing heavily on his mind not only as the largest draw on WRO resources, but also as it required a return to the former Midgar and a reminder of the life that had been destroyed there when Meteor fell. Without thinking too directly about it, Reeve had asked Barret to travel with him. To visit Marlene, and to see Tifa and Cloud.</p><p>Just to visit, of course, and not to offset the sense of gnawing anxiety that accompanied Reeve’s thoughts about the ruins of Midgar. </p><p>The thought was particularly pertinent as, right on time, Barret knocked and entered the office. Looking...</p><p>Looking the way that Barret did, when he was relaxed - confident and laid-back in his movements. Like an action star, and like a composite of all of Reeve’s teenaged fantasies manifesting twenty years late - all muscles and easy grin and a t-shirt that was clearly never intended to stretch across the chest and shoulders of Barret Wallace. </p><p>Reeve stood to meet him halfway across the office with a handshake that involved a great deal of shoulder bumping and back slapping, and worked very hard to direct his attention at – and only at - the collection of newsprint that he’d spotted under Barret’s right arm. </p><p>He really, really hoped that the papers weren’t what he thought they were – but suspected he wasn’t actually that lucky. </p><p>Reeve bought himself some time before addressing the tabloids by going to pour the scotch himself this time.</p><p>“Rocks?”</p><p>“Sure thing.” </p><p>“How was the trip?” There was a sound of paper rustling behind him. </p><p>“Quiet. Suppose Fort Condor doesn’t have a lot to worry about these days without Shinra around,” Barret coughed meaningfully, but there was no venom in it, hadn’t been for months. </p><p>“How are the wind farms coming?”</p><p>“Fine. Better with the monster population down.” </p><p>When Reeve returned to his desk with the two glasses, Barret had already spread out the week’s ‘bounty’ across the surface of his desk. </p><p>Reeve failed to supress of a sound of protest, “How are there so <i>many</i> of them now?” </p><p>Barret just laughed as he accepted his drink, “Heh. Got back earlier than I thought this morning and picked them up at the shops while I was waiting.”</p><p>Everything about the situation was exactly what Reeve had been dreading, except for the way that Barret looked pleased as hell while taking the whole thing in. </p><p>“I thought this one was pretty good. Creative,” Barret handed over one of the tabloids printed on some lighter, cheaper paper. It featured photos of the pair of them and a blur of something that might have been a summon behind them, titled <i>WEAPON DEFEATED BY THE POWER OF LOVE? SUMMONING SEX MAGIC!! MORE INSIDE!!</i></p><p>Reeve didn’t bother to suppress a laugh, clinking glasses with Barret and wondering aloud, “Do they really think it works like that?” </p><p>“Works to sell papers,” Barret grinned, “Made me buy ‘em. Here, look at this one.”</p><p>Reeve accepted a second paper shoved enthusiastically into his hands like it was treasure, and wondered how they had gotten so far away from the enmity of the Jenova Crisis. </p><p>Working together had started it of course. </p><p>Well, less together than the WRO bankrolling whatever projects Barret was working on (provided they were in the interest of the planet – they were) and occasionally making requests for help with more <i>precision</i> operations than what WRO forces could fulfill, but that the former insurgent leader was well equipped to deal with. </p><p>(<i>“Never gonna kowtow to you,” Barret had said the first time Reeve had asked him to take on a specific job, and Reeve had been horrified by the idea even then. </i></p><p>
  <i>“I would never ask you to. After everything-”</i>
</p><p><i>“Just making sure.” </i>)</p><p>But he had accepted a first assignment then, and a handful of times since, when Reeve found he couldn’t get a job done with conventional forces. It was... reassuring, having someone standing by - a familiar, reliable presence from before the world changed - when the WRO needed it. </p><p>If, since then, it had turned into having a friend on hand when <i>Reeve</i> needed it - the early fragile alliance moving into the still fragile but warmer, more intimate thing that allowed them to look at themselves in the ridiculous tabloids and laugh about the state of the media - well, all the better. </p><p>“Here, <i>EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS STARTING PAGE 9</i>,” Reeve found one from the bottom of the stack and flipped it to the specified page, only to freeze when he did, “Well, those are a little more, ahh, compromising than the others.” </p><p>Barret cleared his throat, “They’re awfully good with those photo edits.”</p><p>Reeve risked a glance at Barret beside him where they had both leaned against the edge of his desk. <i>Don’t let it be too much,</i> his earlier anxiety flared back to life, <i>don’t let it be too weird. </i></p><p>Because of course Barret was hot, and there was no question in Reeve’s mind that he would be all over that if he thought he stood any chance at all... but being able to sit and drink scotch and laugh at the funny gay stories about them without it being too weird - that was damn good too. And if Reeve was going to read anything more into the easiness of it it than simply bro’ing it up, he was just setting himself up for a big disappointment. </p><p>Half a moment later Barret was laughing again, recovered from whatever shock he had found between the pages, and Reeve breathed a sigh of relief. </p><p>By the time they had dug through most of the cover stories, Cait Sith had manifested outside the office door, scratching and yowling until a receptionist opened the door for him and he sauntered in. </p><p>“You know how doorknobs work,” Reeve scolded the cat, who ignored him completely in favour of Barret.</p><p>“How ya doin’, Cait?” Barret boomed, catching the cat out of the air as he leaped upward, and scooting backward into the sea of newsprint so that the cat could settle into his lap (which Cait Sith in turn did with enthusiasm, plunking down in the center of the paper Barret had been reading up until then). </p><p>“Nae baud,” Cait Sith purred and arched into the hand that rubbed down his back. </p><p>“You’re a pest,” Reeve accused. The cat ignored him again. </p><p>Cait Sith had been becoming increasingly <i>cat</i>-like in recent months, Reeve had noticed, as his creator spent less and less time riding along in his mind. More like the product of a twenty-year-old Reeve, one night that had involved too little sleep and too much caffeine and a project that was six hours from being overdue, and the sudden essence of something <i>other</i> whispering into his mind and waiting to be given form before he had even fully realized what was happening. </p><p>Reeve hoped sincerely that his younger self’s idea of what cats were like was the only reason Cait Sith was rubbing himself so enthusiastically into Barret’s broad chest while his neck and ears were scratched, and not any parallel inclinations he might have been picking up from his creator. </p><p>“Miss me?” Barret asked the animal in his lap.</p><p>“Ach, mor’n a wee bit. Yeh dinnae ought to make a bother o’ leavin’ ‘gain noo.”</p><p>“We <i>will</i> need to get going,” Reeve answered before Barret could, “And I’m trusting you to keep things in order. <i>With</i> doorknobs and <i>without</i> the accent. You’re upsetting the interns.”</p><p>The last part was not true. The interns loved him. The just didn’t get any damn work done when the cat was around. </p><p>If Reeve had lacked a full understanding of the cat’s perceptions, he might have thought that Cait Sith hadn’t heard him at all, ignoring his creator entirely and rolling over shamelessly to have his belly rubbed – a moment for which Reeve staunchly did not peer into the cat’s mind. </p><p>Looked away instead, vaguely rattled, only to have his eyes fall back on the tabloids. He forced his gaze further still, away and out the windows that overlooked the Junon Ocean. </p><p>Cait Sith really had been a part of him at first – so near that their experiences were almost inextricable, never straying far away from one another’s minds as the spy cat was in constant use under Shinra. The last year, however, had left Reeve tied to his desk in a world that just didn’t seem to need Cait Sith anymore. The result seemed to be a personality nearer and nearer to the character that had first made itself known to him so many years ago... that, or possibly some part of Reeve himself that had been given free reign to act without constraint. </p><p>A part that was much less reserved about both offering and receiving affection, if the current tableau was anything to go by. </p><p>“Stop shedding on Barret and let him up,” Reeve pressed, and while Cait Sith continued to ignore him, Barret did gently displace the cat into the mess of newsprint across Reeve’s desk while getting to his feet. </p><p>“Ye ken I dinnea <i>shed</i>,” the Cait Sith protested, but stayed where he was placed. </p><p>“See ya later, Cait,” Barret gave the animal’s head a final pat before joining Reeve for the walk toward Junon’s nearby airport, abandoning the tabloids for some other time. </p><p>---</p><p>When they arrived in Edge hours later, a long but thankfully uneventful helicopter trip behind them, it was nearly last call at the 7th Heaven. It was also one of the few places Reeve didn’t need to argue with his security team about going unescorted – there were few places on the planet safer than among the ranks of the heroes of Meteorfall. </p><p>Even if the energy in the bar was a little more bibulous than the WRO security team would have necessarily encouraged. </p><p>Reeve followed Barret through the doors to be met with rowdy greetings from both former AVALANCHE members and a collection of hangers-on from around the neighborhood. </p><p>“Tifa!” Barret shouted into the revelry.</p><p>She shouted back, tossing up the bar’s counter to run forward and greet them, hugging first Barret and then moving to Reeve with an exclamation of, “There’s Junon’s hottest couple!”</p><p>Her shout carried and was greeted with an inebriated cheer for the assembled crowd, and Reeve felt suddenly light-headed. </p><p>Of course, the distribution went farther than Junon. </p><p>Of course, everyone had seen it. </p><p>He looked nervously to gauge Barret’s reaction, but the man was laughing along with everyone else, watching Reeve from the corner of his eye as he did, and Reeve forced a small chuckle in solidarity. </p><p>It was as much as he managed before Barret was wrapping an arm around his shoulder and pulling him close to place a theatrical <i>smack</i> of a kiss against his temple, answered by a round of more cheering interspersed with a number of distinct wolf whistles from the assembled patrons. </p><p>The customers were all drunk, of course. They’d cheer for anything a half hour before closing. Even Tifa was showing high color in her cheeks as she dragged them forward to the bar and began preparing them drinks. </p><p>But Barret wasn’t drunk. </p><p>Reeve hoped that the sudden heat he was feeling would be written off as a reaction to the closed atmosphere of the bar, and not anything more than that.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Barret was awake far too early the next morning, for a man who had spent the first half of the night travelling and the second half catching up over drinks once the last of the bar’s patrons had been sent home for the night. </p>
<p>“Papa come <i>on</i>,” unmoved by his lack of sleep, Marlene had wasted no time barging in to wake him after realizing he had arrived in the night, sitting on his chest and tugging at the blankets, “You have to get up for breakfast, Tifa is cooking!” </p>
<p>“Five more minutes, Princess,” he bargained and grabbed the girl to tuck her under his chin, pretending to snore. </p>
<p>“Papa <i>no!</i> Get <i>up!</i>” she wiggled and pushed at him, giggling, and he’d missed the kid so badly he couldn’t fully wrap his head around it. </p>
<p>“Can’t get up. Sleeping,” he produced another dramatic snore. </p>
<p>“You aren’t! You’re <i>faking!</i>” she accused, and finally twisted out of his grip to make her escape, taking the blankets with her. </p>
<p>He <i>was</i> tired, but he got out of bed laughing anyway and followed her down to the kitchen where, as promised, Tifa already had breakfast going. </p>
<p>“Marlene, you were supposed to let him sleep!” Tifa scolded the girl softly when she looked up from the stove and saw them walk into the kitchen. Barret smiled to see her wearing fuzzy pyjamas that matched Marlene’s. </p>
<p>“I did!” Marlene lied unrepentantly, “he was already up.” </p>
<p>“Was fine,” Barret shrugged before bending to pick the kid up with his good arm and drop her, laughing and squirming, onto one of the stools in front of the kitchen island, “Missed her when I got in last night.” </p>
<p>“You can’t have slept more than a few hours,” Tifa turned her attention on him instead, and he held up his arms in a pacifying gesture, “No one else is up yet. Aside from this troublemaker of course.” </p>
<p>Marlene grinned, and began acting out some elaborate scene with a set of salt and pepper shakers. </p>
<p>“Looks like you’ve been up for a while, though.” </p>
<p>Tifa gave a half shrug and pushed a mug of coffee across the island toward him when he took a seat next to Marlene. </p>
<p>The coffee was hot and perfect and went a long way to cut through the previous night’s fuzziness, and Barret took a moment to marvel at Tifa’s energy. The young woman had always been a morning person, but she’d also been up half the night with the rest of them and running the bar besides. </p>
<p>She smiled, while she worked, and he thought with a flash of fierce affection how different she was now from the broken, furious teenager he had first met in in Midgar so many years ago. </p>
<p>“You’re amazing,” he told her.</p>
<p>Tifa laughed at the praise and waved him off, then turned to Marlene, “Why don’t you show your dad your new chocobo?” </p>
<p>Marlene perked up immediately, dropping a shaker in a spray of salt as she did, “Oh yeah! Papa, Cloud brought me a chocobo!” </p>
<p>“Did he?”</p>
<p>“Yeah! Wait here!” she was off the stool and gone in a flash, small feet betraying her location as she dashed for the stairs. </p>
<p>Tifa smiled after her for a moment, then turned back to Barret, “So, you gonna tell me how you became half of Junon’s hot new political power couple?” </p>
<p>“Oh, that,” Barret let out a small chuckle, “Reeve told me the WRO had an intern trying to make some money on the side selling all the hottest gossip. The papers just zeroed in on that bit, I guess.” </p>
<p>Tifa cocked her head to one side, “Are you, though?” </p>
<p>“Am I what?” </p>
<p>“Dating? Reeve?” </p>
<p>Barret nearly spit out his coffee, “What? No! No... someone just heard me talking about the cat, I think, and thought I was talking about him. And then everything got a bit out of control...” </p>
<p>Although he supposed he hadn’t done much to diffuse the situation, playing it up the way he had the night before. The doubt he’d felt when Reeve had gone rigid under his arm, in the face of the cheering crowd, surfaced in his memory. He really ought to have apologized about it sooner, but it had slipped his mind once they had been pulled into the gathering of old friends. </p>
<p>“That must make things awkward?” Tifa prompted him and he realized he had let the silence stretch. </p>
<p>“Nah... Well, Reeve seemed a little upset at first” he thought of the hastily interrupted phone call with the ambassador a few weeks prior and smiled in spite of himself.</p>
<p>“But you aren’t upset,” Tifa observed.</p>
<p>Barret shrugged, “I mean... it’s pretty funny, right?” </p>
<p>Somehow the whole thing <i>did</i> feel more awkward, with Tifa shining a light on it. He hadn’t found himself much interested in seeing anyone, not seriously, since losing Myrna – but there was no denying that the parade of photos in the media casting him with a lover (someone he both liked and admired as much as Reeve, moreover) was flattering. He wondered again if he had crossed a line the previous night, if maybe Reeve’s ability to laugh at the situation didn’t extend to acting it out for the amusement of an audience... but it had been so much in the spirit of the moment, and the crowd had eaten it up. And Reeve had laughed too, after that first long moment. The more Barret thought about it, the more it really had seemed like everything was okay. </p>
<p>Tifa hummed and turned to her breakfast preparations, “You make a very cute couple.”</p>
<p>Barret rolled his eyes and was getting ready to reply when Marlene charged back in dragging a plush chocobo half the size she was and pushed it onto the counter. </p>
<p>“Papa <i>look!</i> His name is Choco.” </p>
<p>He obligingly patted the thing on the head, “Nice to meet you, Choco.”</p>
<p>The little girl made a series of warking noises that were clearly meant to be the stuffed toy’s answer, then after a thoughtful moment bolted back out of the room. </p>
<p>Tifa slid a plate of breakfast in front of him, nodding when he thanked her. </p>
<p>“Well, we’ve all been watching your new romance with great interest here in Edge. In fact...” </p>
<p>Tifa was cut off by an excited shout from the stairwell, loud enough that if anyone in the building had still been sleeping, they weren’t any longer. </p>
<p>“<i>Reeve!</i>”</p>
<p>“Hey, Kiddo,” the much quieter response floated into the kitchen. </p>
<p>“Tifa’s in the kitchen! And Papa’s here too!” </p>
<p>“I know,” the same restrained tones in answer, and a few moments later the man himself appeared, allowing himself to be dragged by Marlene’s grip on his hand as she charged toward Barret and Tifa. </p>
<p>Reeve being Reeve, he looked about as disheveled as he ever did - not very - in spite of presumably just having woken up himself. His expression of sleepy alarm at being greeted by high-octane five-year-old first thing in the morning was offset by already being dressed all the way to a waistcoat, of all things. </p>
<p>“Looking sharp, Reeve,” Tifa greeted him, and Barret found himself silently agreeing.</p>
<p>It also made him acutely aware of exactly how he well-dressed he himself wasn’t. Comfortable and at home, he’d wandered down for breakfast with their oddball family in the same loose pants he’d slept in. Exactly the way he always would have, without taking the time to consider that their oddball family had expanded in the time since the Seventh Heaven had stood in Midgar rather than Edge. </p>
<p>Reeve was clearly caught off guard as well, the poor guy, if the way he had frozen was any indication, and Barret wished fervently that he’d had the presence of mind to grab a shirt. Even Tifa’s fuzzy pyjamas were garnering less attention.</p>
<p>Barret started to make a gesture of apology, realized he was doing it with the empty space where his prosthesis would be later, and the movement turned into a helpless shrug under Reeve’s continued stare. </p>
<p>Tifa cleared her throat loudly and asked, “How do you take your coffee, Reeve?” </p>
<p>“Huh? Oh, black, please. Thank you, Tifa,” Reeve’s attention snapped to her, placid equilibrium restored and flawless manners firmly back in place – the man was nothing if not classy – and slid onto the stool next to Barret where Tifa had placed his mug. </p>
<p>Beside them, Marlene had unloaded another armful of toys onto the island and was placing them systematically. </p>
<p>“We were just discussing your newfound fame in the tabloids,” Tifa informed him as she began to prepare him a plate of breakfast. </p>
<p>Barret thought that he probably shouldn’t, considering how flustered the man had been the night before when Barret had jokingly kissed him, but was couldn’t resist following Tifa’s statement with a greeting of, “Good mornin’, <i>sweetie</i>.” </p>
<p>Reeve flinched, and for a moment Barret was sure that he really had overstepped, before Reeve was bumping their shoulders together in a way that was almost certainly not accidental and answering with dry humour, “How did you sleep, <i>honey</i>?”</p>
<p>Barret let himself smile for a moment (they <i>were</i> still laughing about it, and everything was okay) before replying, “Just fine, <i>dear</i>.” </p>
<p>Tifa rolled her eyes at them but she was obviously laughing, and that was good too, as far as Barret was concerned. After everything she’d been through and all the things she was still doing for him and Marlene, it was good to see her laugh - and he was acutely grateful that Reeve was playing along. </p>
<p>When he glanced to the side, Reeve seemed pleased as well – in the restrained way he had, small smile peeking out from behind his coffee mug. </p>
<p>“<i>Reeve</i>. Did you bring Cait Sith?”</p>
<p>Barret looked over to see Marlene attached again to the man’s side, staring up at him with purpose.</p>
<p>“No, I’m sorry,” he shook his head and looked crestfallen when the little girl’s face crumpled. </p>
<p>“He brought <i>me</i>, you know,” Barret added, and felt vaguely offended when it failed to have the desired effect. <i>Just me. Your boring old dad. Sorry I don’t come with a talking cat like cool Uncle Reeve...</i></p>
<p>“Papa, it’s not the <i>same</i>.” </p>
<p>Well, kids were kids. </p>
<p>“Hey,” Reeve interrupted her pout, “Want to see a magic trick?”</p>
<p>Marlene eyed him suspiciously, then took a step back and gave him an appraising once over as only a five-year-old could give, “Is it good?”</p>
<p>“You’ll have to decide for yourself,” Reeve plucked a small moogle figurine from the pile of toys that had appeared on the counter, and enveloped it between his hands, “Ready?”</p>
<p>“… Don’t hurt her,” Marlene cautioned, eyes gone big. </p>
<p>“I promise,” Reeve told her solemnly, and his eyes dropped closed with a small frown. </p>
<p>“Reeve?” Barret tried to get a clearer view of exactly what the man was doing, but he just shook his head vaguely. </p>
<p>Following the moment of concentration Reeve opened his eyes and his hands at the same time that the tiny figurine got to its feet in his palm, flapping its wings and waving at the little girl.</p>
<p>“Oh!” she exclaimed as Reeve tilted the moogle into her outstretched hands, and she immediately circled to Barret, “Papa, <i>look!</i>”</p>
<p>“It’s really good,” he agreed, looked back at Reeve, “How do you do that?” </p>
<p>Reeve shrugged in reply, managing to look both proud and sheepish, “I just do.” </p>
<p>“Is it... like Cait Sith?” Tifa asked, eyes on the moogle as it hopped between Marlene’s fingertips. </p>
<p>“No,” Reeve answered, “Cait Sith is different, he’s... well, he’s different. <i>More</i>, I think. This one is just an idea, it’ll wear off in a couple of days.” </p>
<p>“How is he? Cait Sith?” Tifa prompted, at the same time bringing across the coffee carafe and refilling everyone’s mug before placing it on the counter. She had prepared plates for herself and Reeve as well, in the time Reeve was animating the toy, and she picked at her toast. </p>
<p>“Bored, I think,” Reeve admitted, “Last week he tracked litter all over our place. I don’t even know where he found it. He doesn’t <i>use</i> litter. He doesn’t have a digestive tract.”</p>
<p>He shrugged helplessly, and Barret found himself grinning at the image of the WRO Director, organized and fastidious, getting home to find his “pet”’s leavings in every room. He wondered if the reaction had been at all like when Reeve had gotten flustered before hanging up on the ambassador a few weeks prior, and couldn’t help letting out a chuckle at the memory of the man’s agitation. </p>
<p>“You should send him out this way more often,” Tifa suggested, “It would be good to see him, and it would get him out of your hair for a bit.” </p>
<p>“Thank you.” </p>
<p>If it sounded to Barret that he was grateful for more than just a cat sitter, the moment passed quickly. </p>
<p>“Anyway,” Tifa continued, “Barret was just telling me about how you two became the talk of the press.”</p>
<p>Reeve coughed lightly, “I suppose he told you all about the intern and the pet names then?” </p>
<p><i>Pet names!</i> Barret cursed internally. It had entirely slipped his mind when Reeve had entered the kitchen, and he kicked himself for the missed opportunity to take advantage of all the possible cat-themed nicknames.</p>
<p>“I should have called you <i>kitten</i>!” Barret shouted, slamming his mug onto the counter and splashing coffee across the surface. </p>
<p>“What?” Reeve was staring at him strangely, but he didn’t care. </p>
<p>“Just now! Pussy cat! Furball? <i>Tiger!</i>”</p>
<p>“Barret, people are still sleeping,” Tifa chided him, already wiping up his spilled coffee. </p>
<p>Cowed, he lowered his voice to answer, “Sorry Tifa. I feel <i>paw</i>-sitively awful.” </p>
<p>Tifa rolled her eyes at him again, but Marlene was laughing, so it was <i>fine</i>, just <i>fine</i>.</p>
<p>“<i>Anyway</i>,” Reeve broke in, “Since there doesn’t seem to be anything printing that’s too damaging, and since Barret tells me he doesn’t mind-”</p>
<p>“It’s absolutely <i>hiss</i>-terical,” Barret interjected, ignored by everyone except Marlene, who giggled. </p>
<p>“- the PR team’s advice was to just let it run its course.”</p>
<p>“And I get to enjoy my moment on the arm of Junon’s most eligible bachelor. Not bad for the ego, that,” Barret grinned and bumped against Reeve’s shoulder again, turning when the man made a small noise – but Reeve’s expression was as serene as ever when he looked. </p>
<p>Tifa hummed thoughtfully, looking back and forth between them, and Barret felt a moment of misgiving that she was about to fix them with her excessively astute bartender analysis, but she just asked, “So there’s no truth to the story that you’ve been covering up your secret tryst since before Meteorfall? We were all very impressed, when it printed last week.” </p>
<p>Barret turned to look at Reeve, who was already staring back at him. </p>
<p>He shrugged. </p>
<p>“Where would we have found the <i>time</i>?” Reeve asked Tifa, and she did laugh then, as Reeve took another sip of his coffee and gave a little shrug, “Besides which, it’s my understanding that I’m not exactly Barret’s type.” </p>
<p>Unable to resist, Barret gave an exaggerated gasp, “But Reeve, I think you’re the <i>cat’s pyjamas!</i>”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>It should come as a surprise to no one that my favorite part of the Remake was, of course, Barret making dad jokes.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Reeve had <i>almost</i> gotten used to seeing Barret walk into his office with a pile of newsprint beneath his arm when checking in after a contract. </p>
<p>He was even - guardedly - beginning to look forward to it, perusing their latest exploits at the hands of the tabloid journalists’ creative deviance. </p>
<p>It was, as Barret had first pointed out, getting to be quite funny. </p>
<p>And it was certainly better than the tabloids that connected him to Cait Sith’s operations by anything more than simple association. Definitely better than the publications suggesting that Reeve was, in fact, a robot himself. Those ones rang a little too near to current WRO projects for security (although the crossover between popular themes that speculated on <i>robot</i> sex scandals had been charming in their own way. He and Barret had taken turns reading excerpts from one of the better ones while laughing into their drinks a week prior, and it had been one of the best evenings Reeve had passed since taking control of the WRO). </p>
<p>So as long as everyone was still laughing, there was no real harm in the fictional scandals. Any harm the rags might have done to the WRO’s international legitimacy was, after all, matched by their indiscriminate targeting of a wide range of public figures. It wasn’t as if it was <i>personal</i>.</p>
<p>“Hey, Cait!” Barret called out upon entering the office on that particular afternoon. </p>
<p>Cait Sith, who had been sleeping obstinately adjacent to a cat bed in the late afternoon sunshine, got to his feet, stretched, took the additional three steps to be seated on the bed itself, and pointedly sat with his back to the room. </p>
<p>“You’re three days later than he expected,” Reeve explained, “He’ll get over it.” </p>
<p>The cat made a loud sniffing noise, and resettled himself more pointedly while looking out the window. </p>
<p>“Sorry, Cait,” Barret said anyway, depositing his collection of newsprint into the center of Reeve’s desk. </p>
<p>Reeve’s new easiness about the tabloids was undermined by the nature of the folder onto which they had been dropped. <i>That</i> file had caused Reeve some considerable uncertainty - an upcoming initiative for restoration of the Corel coal mines, a bipartite project scheduled to begin between the WRO and local government to jumpstart economic and energy initiative in the area. Part of the rebuilding efforts neglected for so long under Shinra. </p>
<p>When the proposal for it had first hit his desk, Reeve’s mind had been taken immediately back to his first meeting with Barret in South Corel, albeit through the eyes of the cat currently ignoring them meaningfully from his place by the window. Even without knowing the man, even through all the lies that Reeve had still believed from Shinra about the nature of AVALANCHE, it had been hard to see the obvious hurt and anger Barret had carried then without being moved. </p>
<p>“Something wrong?” Barret asked, fixing Reeve with a vaguely puzzled expression </p>
<p>Distracted by the reminiscence and by the fraught conversation he knew was inevitable, Reeve realized that he had failed to greet Barret as he normally did, staying instead safely behind his desk with his eyes on the offending folder now covered by newsprint. </p>
<p>“Sorry, just distracted,” he got to his feet and leaned across the desk for a handshake, only to be drawn into a series of dodging fist bumps that finally made him sigh out some of the tension he’d been holding, “There’s nothing - well, that’s not true. There’s something.” </p>
<p>Not able to think of any way to breach the subject without touching on the old wound, Reeve pushed aside the pile of newsprint to pull out the file and pass it to Barret, who was watching the process with a raised eyebrow. </p>
<p>He couldn’t imagine <i>not</i> offering Barret the project, either. </p>
<p>“There’s a space open heading the WRO side of the initiative. It’s yours if you want it,” Reeve narrated as Barret flipped the folder open, “Based on your experience and history I thought you deserved the first option for the spot.” </p>
<p>He hoped he was imagining the way that colour drained from the other man’s face. </p>
<p>Barret cleared his throat and shut the folder, “Uhh, think I’d better not. Thanks, I guess... Don’t think anyone there would be very happy to see the WRO if I was there with ‘em.” </p>
<p>“I wouldn’t force you,” Reeve accepted the file as it was passed back to him, frowning at it as he set it aside. Barret’s refusal also meant finding someone else - someone who would by definition be substantially less qualified - to fill the position, “But your reputation has been significantly rehabilitated in recent years, former Selectman Wallace. You might be surprised by the welcome you receive.” </p>
<p>Barret fixed him with an unreadable expression that made Reeve want to shift nervously, “Haven’t heard that title in a <i>long</i> time. You read my file.” </p>
<p>Barret sighed, and Reeve offered him a shrug. He’d read everyone’s file, back before Cait Sith was deployed to infiltrate AVALANCHE. </p>
<p>“I don’t think Corel cares about my reputation,” Barret finally shook his head, “People have long memories there. I still let Shinra in.” </p>
<p>Reeve felt some undefined unhappiness tugging at the corners of his mouth, and stared at the offending file on his desk, “I’m sorry, Barret, I won’t ask you about the project again... But if you change your mind, it’s yours. I think your local knowledge would be an asset for the team there.” </p>
<p>“I’ll keep it in mind,” Barret answered, in a way that made Reeve quite certain that in fact he would not. </p>
<p>Reeve reflected that he really shouldn’t have expected anything different. He knew, had seen first hand, the ill feelings still lingering between Barret and his hometown. It was, however, the first time that he thought it might also represent some critical loss of confidence for the man - that the bad blood Reeve had thought was resolved, after they had prevented a second Shinra disaster falling on the town, was nothing when compared against some deep-seated hurt or shaken foundation that the town represented for Barret. </p>
<p>“Can I offer you a drink?” Reeve asked instead of pursuing the subject.</p>
<p>“That’d be good,” Barret agreed, and Reeve removed himself to pour drinks before he could say anything else damaging. </p>
<p>When he turned back, tumblers in hand, Barret was seated on the desk with a lapful of Cait Sith, who had clearly chosen that moment to forgive the man’s temporal indiscretion. </p>
<p>Barret accepted the drink that Reeve handed him, then passed him one of the papers, “Looks like someone in Edge has been watching us, too.” </p>
<p>Reeve frowned, then unfolded the paper to see the pair of them in the Seventh Heaven (a picture that had clearly needed <i>no</i> photo editing) the night they had arrived nearly at closing and Barret had kissed him while acting out the joke for the crowd. </p>
<p>Reeve had almost made himself forget his own awkward surprise and the damning warmth he had felt under Barret’s affection - even in jest - played out for the amusement of the bar patrons. </p>
<p>But there it was in full color print over the entire front page, entirely too candid for Reeve’s comfort - Barret’s easy humour and Reeve’s pleased surprise. </p>
<p>His surprise and complete absence of resistance, Reeve noted with a cringe - a painfully clear treatise regarding his thoughts on the subject, exposed there for anyone to see while perusing the nearest magazine rack. </p>
<p>“Sorry ‘bout that, by the way. Got caught up in the joke and didn’t think to ask you if you minded. Shoulda said sooner, but forgot until I saw this.” </p>
<p>“It’s fine,” Reeve answered automatically, wondering desperately if Barret saw the same evidence in the picture that he saw so clearly himself, “At least they were saved the trouble of hiring a photo editor this time.” </p>
<p>He considered the glass of scotch in his hand and reflected that it really didn’t seem big enough to handle the situation.</p>
<p>Barret let out a loud laugh that unsettled Cait Sith in his lap, who after glaring at him circled twice and settled back in. </p>
<p>“Don’t worry, they found a use for their budget - check out the centerfold.” </p>
<p>Reeve did, and immediately wished he hadn’t.</p>
<p>“That’s a little more... athletic... than the usual fair,” Reeve observed when he was done choking on his drink. </p>
<p>“Huh?” Barret leaned toward him then stopped halfway, “Oh. <i>Shit</i>. Sorry, Reeve, wrong paper... can they print that?”</p>
<p>“I don’t think so,” Reeve risked a glance over, and thought that for once Barret actually looked uncomfortable about the entire thing, “I’ll send it to media relations and see if they can have it pulled.” </p>
<p>“Looks like it’s pulling plenty enough already,” Barret muttered, and Reeve snorted. </p>
<p>“It’s certainly enthusiastic - I’m not sure I’ve ever done anything quite like that, you?” </p>
<p>He realized his mistake as soon as it was out of his mouth, confirmed by Barret’s long silence, that the hypothetical sounded uncomfortably more like a <i>gay</i> thing than a <i>sex</i> thing. </p>
<p>“Sorry, I -” Reeve began, but Barret was already waving him off, flipping the paper closed with forced casualness, and looking discomposed in a way that Reeve hadn’t often seen from the other man. </p>
<p>“Is this becoming a problem?” Reeve let himself wonder aloud, “All of these stories in the media, does it worry you that Marlene is going to see them, or that -”</p>
<p>“She’d better not see <i>that</i> one,” Barret protested with sudden panic, and Reeve held up his hands in a placating gesture. </p>
<p>“Agreed. But,” he cleared his throat and tried to think how to form the question that had been weighing on him since the first round of scandals had printed nearly two months before, “does it bother you? To be portrayed in a more, ah... <i>non-traditional</i> relationship?” </p>
<p>“Non-trad-” Barret began to echo him, then frowned, “Aw hell, is that the problem?”</p>
<p>“Not a problem, exactly,” Reeve answered, suddenly nervous at the delicacy of the situation, the awareness that whatever ease and humour had lit their afternoons perusing the scandal sheets was in danger of being extinguished, “Just...”</p>
<p>“No, it’s not a problem,” Barret answered, “A little non-traditional myself.” </p>
<p>Reeve glanced up to see something rough and challenging in Barret’s face, something that dared him to take issue.</p>
<p>“I... didn’t realize,” Reeve felt his chest tighten - had seen how quickly situations could deteriorate, when Barret felt cornered, “You’ve always been very discreet, I’m sorry if I led you to believe that I would, ah, take issue. With anything.” </p>
<p>“Hn,” Barret offered him a little shrug and looked away, “Not discreet. Just not a lot to realize.”</p>
<p>When Reeve couldn’t think of an answer to that quickly enough, Barret continued, “Hasn’t been anyone since Myrna, anyway.” </p>
<p>“But that was more than five years ago!” Reeve heard the words coming out of his mouth before he had fully formed the intention to say them, and winced at his own lack of sensitivity. </p>
<p>Cait Sith, who had been steadfastly ignoring both of them from his perch in Barret’s lap, took an interest long enough to glance between them and silently remove himself back to the cat bed by the windows. </p>
<p>Barret watched him go, then gave a small shrug, “Was too angry at first... was so fresh and it all hurt like hell. Thought I was gonna feel like that forever.” </p>
<p>“Barret...”</p>
<p>He held his hand up to stop whatever Reeve was going to say, “It passed... Well, the worst of it did. But by then everything was just moving so fast. Marlene growing up and gettin’ into all kinds of trouble, and then AVALANCHE getting started - there was just never any time.” </p>
<p>“And now?” Reeve asked, the awkward question sliding out before he could think better of it.</p>
<p>“Am I not busy enough for you?” Barret asked sharply, then seemed to catch himself and offered an apologetic half-shrug, “... Just out of the habit, I guess.” </p>
<p>“And... before Myrna?”</p>
<p>“Nah,” Barret shook his head, expression softening and drifting to somewhere far away, “No one before. We met in high school, and it was kind of perfect, you know?” </p>
<p>“I’m sorry.” </p>
<p>It made Reeve ache, to think of the <i>kind of perfect</i> couple robbed of the chance to grow old together, one more tragedy on the pyre built by Shinra. Worse, to see it following someone who had come to be so important to him, over the past months. He’d known about Myrna of course - as Barret had pointed out, he had read everyone’s files. But there was knowing, and there was <i>knowing</i>. </p>
<p>He found himself staring into his drink with sudden melancholy, sorry to have picked at the old wound. </p>
<p>When the silence stretched, Barret cleared his throat and asked with forced levity, “Speaking of discreet, what about you? Got any ladies waiting in the wings for your big media affair to blow over?” </p>
<p>“No, certainly not,” dragged abruptly from his ruminations, Reeve surprised himself by laughing. He fidgeted a moment over whether to say anything further, then decided that it was only fair under the circumstances, “But it’s gentlemen.” </p>
<p>“What?” </p>
<p>“If there was someone waiting in the wings,” Reeve clarified, “It would be a gentleman.” </p>
<p>Barret fixed him with a long look that made him fight the urge to squirm. </p>
<p>“Huh,” Barret decided finally, “Go figure.” </p>
<p>Well, it was far from the coldest reception Reeve had received to the information. </p>
<p>After a pregnant pause, Barret cleared his throat, “Maybe these rags aren’t wrong about <i>everything</i> after all.” </p>
<p>He reached for one of the papers on the far side of the desk. </p>
<p>Grateful to move forward from the suddenly loaded moment, Reeve helpfully grabbed the thing to pass it to him and as he did, found their hands touching - warm and surprising and a little like sudden electricity. </p>
<p>Barret’s grip tightened slightly, meeting his eyes across the desk, and Reeve was pinned down by the look, by the touch. </p>
<p>He waited for Barret to break the contact. </p>
<p>He kept waiting.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Minor warning here for discussion of disability, but it's over quick</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Weeks passed uneventfully after the charged moment in Reeve’s office, Barret throwing himself into a long assignment in the field that had everything to do with alternative power adaptations in Fort Condor and <i>definitely</i> nothing to do with the strange, tense afternoon following the unexpected admissions over the tabloid content.</p>
<p>If Barret had spent half his time in the field contemplating what <i>might</i> have happened in the space after their hands met over the paper, well, no one else needed to know that.</p>
<p>The tension had passed, anyway, by the time he had gotten back, instead falling back into the easy and safe routine of friendship - territory that was comfortingly familiar, if disappointing in ways he wasn’t necessarily prepared to examine. </p>
<p>Things continued on more or less as normal, in fact, until the opening evening of a WRO summit arrived to throw a wrench into things. </p>
<p>“Aww, damn, Reeve, there’s a problem.” </p>
<p>Barret sighed into the mirror of the guest bathroom (and it definitely rang of a guest bathroom, or maybe a <i>washcloset</i> or whatever fancy damn thing it was supposed to be called - staged and impersonal, perfect except that it lacked towels drying over the rack, lacked a collection of toothbrushes by the sink - it was <i>lonely</i>), having reached an impasse with the suit that had been sent over for him in anticipation of the evening’s event. </p>
<p>“The guy brought a shirt with cuffs,” he continued, “don’t suppose I could borrow something…?” </p>
<p>“... I had considered the possibility,” Reeve’s hesitant answer reached him, muffled by the door, “I believe I can offer a solution.” </p>
<p>Count on Reeve to have already thought of everything - and to make it sound like some international treaty he was overseeing instead of a pair of cufflinks. </p>
<p>Barret shook his head in casual disbelief and didn’t fight the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he pulled on the tux jacket before heading out into the main room. The event was some kind of fancy black tie thing - kicking off the week-long summit designed to demonstrate solidarity between world leaders as they moved forward from Shinra’s mako-fueled corporatocracy. All of AVALANCHE had been asked to attend and many of them had agreed - the heroes of Meterofall an obvious addition to symbolize a break from the old way of doing things. </p>
<p>It was also a great excuse to have a lot of the old gang back together - Marlene had arrived with Tifa and Cloud earlier in the day and he’d been able to take her all around Junon to show her the places he’d only been able to tell her about before (her and another kid, Denzel, that Tifa and Cloud had recently taken in). He’d dropped them off not long before with a contingent of WRO security charged with keeping the kids out of trouble until after the event. </p>
<p>The only part of the entire thing that didn’t sit right with him was the insistence that he wear the damn suit - and he’d been more grateful than he expected at Reeve’s insistence that he arrive early at the man’s penthouse to prepare, rather than at his own one room flat on the other side of town. While he was almost certain that the invitation to arrive early for drinks was Reeve’s thinly veiled attempt to ensure that he showed up on time and presentable, Barret nevertheless harboured the same doubts about his own abilities to meet the occasion and was just as happy for the implicit offer of help. </p>
<p>If it also afforded a rare chance to see Reeve in his home and outside of the WRO offices, all the better. </p>
<p>Reeve was already seated on a sofa when he reached the front room, giving every indication of having long been prepared for the evening and looking, in Barret’s estimation, a hell of a lot more comfortable in a tux than Barret himself would ever be. Looked <i>damn good</i> in fact. </p>
<p>Barret dropped into a chair opposite him and offered a one sided shrug, holding up the open cuffs of his shirt as he did, “Sorry, Cat, didn’t mean to make extra trouble.” </p>
<p>Reeve’s brief hesitation over the nickname (less frequent, since it has been picked up by the press) wasn’t lost on him, either. </p>
<p>The pause was fleeting, however, before the man leaned forward to where a small box sat between a pair of tumblers and pushed it forward, “Actually I’m glad it came up, I had meant to give you these.” </p>
<p>“What is it?” Barret asked as he reached to pick it up. He wondered if it was intentional, the way that Reeve lingered until their hands brushed together before pulling away. He didn’t think it was accidental, not from the man sitting across from him, who planned everything ten steps ahead of everyone around him. </p>
<p>“A solution, I think,” Reeve answered, breaking the contact as though it <i>had</i> been unintentional - one of the drinks in hand and legs crossing casually as he settled back into his seat. </p>
<p>Barret felt the beginning of a smile as he watched the other man’s overly-practiced movements, and began to feel that he might in fact know what was in the box even before he balanced it in his palm to flip it open with his thumb. </p>
<p>He still wasn’t prepared for the set of cufflinks that were actually in the box though - slightly larger than a standard pair, shaped simply from a metal that was almost certainly mythril and was definitely a hell of a lot more expensive than anything Barret would ever have picked out for himself. </p>
<p>“Aww heck Reeve, these must have cost a fortune, I can’t -” </p>
<p>He cut himself off when he looked up to see Reeve looking away, suddenly uncomfortable, and Barret was struck by the sense that he was about to blunder and break some fragile thing that hadn’t quite been voiced yet. It didn’t seem much like the kind of gift that was given between friends - at least not any friends he’d had before Reeve was in the picture. Seemed a lot more, in fact, like the kind of declaration of intent that Barret had never been on the <i>receiving</i> end of, in the past. </p>
<p>He shook his head, “Sorry, knee jerk reaction. I like 'em.” </p>
<p>He pulled one from the case to turn it over in his hand, spotting an almost-hidden engraving of his initials along the edge that told him more than anything that the gift had also not been any sudden impulse, a realization that left him feeling both warm and out of his depth all at once. </p>
<p>“They’re great, in fact. Thanks, Reeve,” his face had broken into a wide grin before he had fully realized it was going to happen, and was gratified when Reeve met his gaze with a cautious smile in return. </p>
<p>“You’re welcome,” Reeve nodded, giving the impression that his equilibrium had been restored all at once. He raised his glass in a vague salute and Barret placed the cufflinks back on the low table to do the same. </p>
<p>When he moved to wear the things, however, he hit a new impasse - everything fine on his right arm where gun was replaced for the evening with a simple grasping hook in deference to the tone of the event, but even the simple prosthetic lacked the dexterity to do the same for the left cuff. </p>
<p>“I’m sorry, I didn’t think,” Reeve’s face was pinched and unhappy when Barret looked over, and he felt a twinge in return - not about the cufflinks, necessarily, but some older, deeper frustration he’d thought was past. </p>
<p>“S’okay,” he answered, but his mind was already drifting back to when the loss was fresh and devastating and a glaring reminder of everything else he had lost alongside it. When he had to learn how to do everything for himself with one hand and had finally redesigned his life around all the things he couldn’t do any more (simple clothes, simple tools - learning to want, to <i>need</i> less). </p>
<p>“I can get the WRO engineering department on it,” Reeve was already problem solving, and Barret wondered what was showing in his demeanor that the unhappy expression on the other man’s face had turned to one of concentrated determination, “They’re very good - <i>very</i> good - and you’re a member of the organization now, you’re entitled to-”</p>
<p>Barret made an effort to school his features while waving away Reeve’s concern, “Nuh. I got a guy. Gotta go see him, I guess.” </p>
<p>“I... of course. But if you change your mind you only need to say so,” Reeve placed his drink back on the low table and got to his feet, stepping nearer, “In the interim, can I offer my assistance?” </p>
<p>It rankled - not who was offering the help, but the need for help at all. Felt like it undermined, in some way, all the things he’d done in spite of - <i>because of</i> - the loss of his arm... But of course, Reeve had been there the entire way, in a sense. Through the Crisis and Sephiroth and Meteor. Not much left to prove, there. </p>
<p>“I, uh,” he cleared his throat as he got to his feet, “Guess it wouldn’t hurt.” </p>
<p>He made an effort to remain pliant as Reeve took the offending fastening from him and began to slide it through the cuff at Barret’s obligingly outstretched wrist. </p>
<p>While he was prepared to accept the help, he found himself totally unprepared for the way the small, careful touches against his wrist and the base of his palm - incidental to the task, <i>almost</i> accidental - shot through him like lightning while Reeve addressed the simple job with all the focus and attention to detail that he spent on all things. Barret tried to and couldn’t think of the last time he’d been subject to the same kind of intensity of attention outside of a fight. </p>
<p>Reeve smoothed the cuff and twitched the sleeve of the jacket into place as he finished, then looked up with a raised brow, making Barret wonder if the strange sense of intimacy he was experiencing wasn’t lost on Reeve either. Made him wonder if maybe Reeve hadn’t had some incline as to how the scene would play out all along, ten steps ahead as he always was - and, in light of the soft touch lingering at the base of his palm, whether he minded if Reeve <i>had</i> planned it that way.  </p>
<p>“Thanks,” Barret said as Reeve cleared his throat and began to step away - without quite letting go of the hold he still had on Barret’s hand - and Barret took it as a sign to tease him, “Of course, I’m gonna need some help getting undressed tonight after this.” </p>
<p>And there it was, not a sound but a hitch in Reeve’s breathing, the extra color in his face that Barret knew he would have missed if he wasn’t looking for it - critically telling, in the man who had faced down Sephiroth and who headed the WRO without so much as flinching. </p>
<p>“I think I might just be able to help you with that, too,” Reeve finally answered in a way that was so loaded that Barret found himself a little surprised (although he wasn’t sure why he should be, not with the gift and the small touches and the small <i>looks</i>) that Reeve wasn’t backing off from the teasing as he had before. </p>
<p>It left him wondering what he had gotten himself into, and if maybe he liked it, for all that it crept outside the comforting bounds of the familiar and easy. </p>
<p>Reeve was still holding his hand, thumb lingering over the center of his palm and moving in small circles that he could almost have been imagining and yet still seemed hardwired to something hot and wanting in him. As close as they were standing together, he could smell Reeve’s cologne - subtle and probably expensive and more than a little distracting in the best way. Just like everything else about the man. </p>
<p>He wondered what would happen, if he closed the distance. If he followed the impulse that had been hovering at the back of his mind for the past weeks and kissed Reeve.  </p>
<p>He didn’t think Reeve would mind at all if Barret kissed him. Suspected that after the gift, and the small touches, and the terribly cheesy line about getting undressed, that the other man may even be waiting for it - dark eyes watching him intensely, <i>maybe</i> intentionally running his tongue over his lower lip. </p>
<p>Barret closed his fingers over the hand still grasping his and asked, “Reeve?” </p>
<p>Anything Reeve was going to say back was lost when the intercom buzzed, making them jump. </p>
<p>“What the <i>hell</i>?” Barret heard himself yelling as he jumped back, spinning toward the noise. </p>
<p>“My sentiments exactly,” Reeve agreed sourly, moving to the door. </p>
<p>It was of course Tifa and Cloud, precisely on time and with Yuffie in tow for good measure - exactly as arranged in order to arrive in a single group to the night’s event. </p>
<p>Barret hugged Tifa tightly and twirled her around with all the power of the nervous energy still fizzing under his skin, until she smacked his shoulder good naturedly and demanded to be put down before he ruined her makeup. </p>
<p>He placed her carefully back down on the (frankly terrifying) heels she had chosen for the evening and turned to shake hands with Cloud next, still hyper-aware of Reeve in his periphery where the man greeted Tifa with a far more refined double kiss and gentle, “You look lovely, Tifa.” </p>
<p>When greetings were completed and everyone had moved to the front room, Tifa asked them, “Did we interrupt your secret tryst by arriving early?” </p>
<p>Put on the spot and suddenly unsure how to define the moment that had preceded their arrival, Barret shrugged at her, “Your timing is <i>terrible</i>, Tifa. We were having <i>wild sex</i> up here. Barely had time to put the trapeze away before you got upstairs.” </p>
<p>“Oh my <i>gawd</i>, Barret! Why do you have to say things like that?” Yuffie protested, making a face at him before turning to the sideboard where Tifa had made herself at home mixing drinks.</p>
<p>Barret in turn directed his attention at Reeve (who was watching him with an unreadable expression) and winked - earning a small smile in response, “Don’t you read the papers?” Barret asked the young woman, but he kept his eyes fixed on Reeve, and the small smile that was threatening to turn into a laugh, “We can’t keep our hands off each other - right, <i>Tiger</i>?” </p>
<p>“Barret, stop teasing him,” Tifa scolded him gently before Reeve could make any response, “Reeve, you can tell him to stop, you know.” </p>
<p>But Barret was already throwing his arm around Reeve’s shoulders and pulling him close to his side in demonstration of how very true and accurate the tabloids were. He didn’t worry about it - it was <i>expected</i> for him to be exuberant and play into the joke. </p>
<p>Reeve was the guy who thought about media relations, public image... who knew the exact moment it was appropriate to call an end to the joke. </p>
<p>Reeve was also very warm, tucked against his side with no apparent resistance. </p>
<p>Reeve would let him know when the joke was over.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Has it really been over 3 weeks since I updated this? I'm so sorry... I hope the next few chapters can make up for the wait :) :) :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>At some point, standing in the front room and pressing full length against one another while acting out a tabloid scene for the rest of AVALANCHE had turned into Barret pulling Reeve down to sit on the sofa while still pressed tight together. </p>
<p>The contact was maddeningly distracting even through the layers of their formal attire. </p>
<p>Reeve was certain that Barret would give him some signal when the joke was over, but until then it was... nice. Not exactly what Reeve had been hoping for before the door buzzer had broken whatever moment was building earlier (when he was almost certain that Barret was going to kiss him - and for his own part he’d given every signal he knew how shy of sending a singing telegram) but certainly better than the weeks that had come before it, when Barret had disappeared on a longer than normal assignment, leaving Reeve wondering if he had overstepped some critical line the day he had brought up the job in Corel. </p>
<p>The weight of Barret’s arm, of Barret’s affection, was very warm. Even if it was just a joke put on for the crowd. </p>
<p>And Reeve didn’t think he’d pushed too hard, although he cursed his own accidental unkindness in the damn cufflinks. While it was always possible that he’d misread the situation between them - the strange, loaded moment in Reeve office some weeks before when Barret had run his thumb over Reeve’s knuckles and looked at him so <i>suggestively</i>, and the handful of times since that Reeve had caught him watching too intensely before turning away. </p>
<p>Of course, interest and intent were two very different things, but... to do nothing when the possibility of more seemed to tantalizingly close ignored that it was something that <i>Reeve</i> wanted. He just hoped their friendship would survive if he did overstep. </p>
<p>The arm wrapped around his shoulder gave a quick squeeze and brought him back to the moment, making him aware of how far he’d drifted - although when he scanned the room only Barret seemed to have noticed. </p>
<p>Across from them, Tifa had begun trick bartending, making Reeve briefly concerned for his carpet (but of course Tifa was flawless, as always, navigating the tiny bar without hesitation in spite of her evening wear). Yuffie, at her side, was equally impressive - although thankfully not trying any elaborate tricks with martini glasses. The delinquent sixteen year old tomboy Reeve had met back before the fall of Shinra had grown admirably into her role as an international representative for her state. He’d already scheduled full days for her later in the week to address the problems Wutai was facing with Geostigma relief efforts, and their brief discussions to date had suggested that he had at least as much to learn from her as he had to offer in return. </p>
<p>Seated in an armchair opposite Reeve and Barret on the sofa, Cloud was already explaining the developments in Midgar since the trip to speak with local government the month before. </p>
<p>“There’s nothing concrete yet, but the rumours are too consistent not to take seriously,” he reported, rubbing absently at the pink ribbon wrapped over his left arm, “The people still sheltering in the slums report lights and noises coming from the old Sector 0.”</p>
<p>Reeve frowned in response. It was near enough to what the interim mayor of Edge had told him, albeit in less vested language. </p>
<p>“We can start to address this first thing tomorrow if you’re available,” Reeve decided, trying to calculate from memory if he had the resources to deploy a full WRO team for the purpose in light of all the known issues they were already overseeing. It was worth considering. There was always the team from the Mythril Mines - they were already versed in working in enclosed spaces...</p>
<p>Barret patted his arm a few times, letting him know that he was getting lost again. Reeve shot him a grateful look, only noticing the oddness of the interaction when Cloud snorted at them. </p>
<p>“Will Nanaki be here?” Yuffie broke in, poking Cloud to make him shift over and perching on the arm of his chair with some fancy, bright red drink that Tifa had mixed for her. </p>
<p>“I’m afraid not,” Reeve shook his head, “although Vincent mentioned running into him in the outlying regions of Nibelheim. I sent a telegram but haven’t received a response.” </p>
<p>Yuffie looked disappointed but didn’t protest, only sipped her drink in silence. </p>
<p>Cid had likewise declined the WRO invitation in favour of overseeing a tricky stage of an oil development project with Shera - something that Reeve considered a mixed blessing. Highwind was great for publicity in his absence and a PR nightmare when he did show up. More disappointing was the absence of Vincent, whose quiet competence Reeve found reassuring (although he had to admit that the man, unbracketed by the dubiously calming company of Cid and Nanaki, was Chaos waiting to happen). </p>
<p>“What about Cait Sith?” Tifa prompted, settling gracefully into another chair after handing Cloud a drink that he accepted politely then immediately deposited on the low coffee table untouched. </p>
<p>“He did ask to come,” Reeve admitted, “But he gets bored quickly these days. And I’m not sure the WRO’s image would be improved by another incident like the one with the Gongagan delegate and the crab cakes. I’m sure he’ll enjoy himself better with Marlene and Denzel.” </p>
<p>The poor WRO security agents assigned to the task of watching the kids on the other hand would almost certainly not be enjoying themselves better with Cait Sith there - armed as they were with a set of finger paints and a wish of “godspeed” - but that was a problem for later in the evening. </p>
<p>“I’m sure he will,” Tifa smiled softly, “And probably be good for Denzel, too.” </p>
<p>Reeve didn’t notice himself reacting, but he must have done something because all at once the arm around his shoulders tightened incrementally - almost as if it wasn’t a joke waiting to get weird and be over at any moment - when Denzel was mentioned. </p>
<p>There were lots of Denzels in the world, of course. The familiarity of the name, mentioned by his mother before she became one more missing person in the ruins of Midgar, didn’t mean anything more than simple coincidence. But still, it offered more hope than he’d had before the youth had fallen into Tifa and Cloud’s guardianship... even if thinking that a traumatized child was going to bring him news was foolhardy at best. </p>
<p>Barret’s arm around him was very real, though, and as strange as the moment was that had led to it, he was grateful. </p>
<p>Tifa’s phone chimed, interrupting the moment. Glancing at it briefly she announced, “The car is downstairs. Come on boys, you can cuddle on the way there.”</p>
<p>“Uhh,” Barret pulled his arm away quickly, and Reeve jumped to his feet in response. </p>
<p>They did not cuddle in the car. </p>
<p>—-</p>
<p>Yuffie really <i>was</i> in her element at diplomatic events, provided that her father wasn’t involved, which made the raised voices between her and Kalm’s Prime Minister Palmer something of a surprise. </p>
<p>Reeve usually liked Palmer, a magnificent battleaxe of a woman he had been shocked to learn was related to his much less impressive former colleague on the Shinra executive team. His admiration, however, extended only so far as the significant force of the woman's personality was brought to bear in a direction that was not the WRO. </p>
<p>Or eighteen year old heroes of the Jenova crisis, for preference. </p>
<p>“So sorry, Ms. Prime Minister,” he greeted her as he slid between her and the slightly alarmed teenager, glad to have arrived before the young woman’s lingering rough edges made their presence known in the form of a Bolt spell, “what seems to be the problem?” </p>
<p>The woman’s derision turned on him and he braced himself to be subjected to her list of grievances. </p>
<p>“You’re putting in a lot of energy getting cozy with old adversaries, Reeve,” his lips tightened as she addressed him informally but didn’t interrupt, “when you’ve still got problems flowing out of the former Midgar at speed. You know the rumours.” </p>
<p>There were many, and he didn’t want to ask which ones she was referring to, “If you’re so well informed, Prime Minister, then of course you know that the WRO has been working with the interim government in Edge in order to resolve matters as quickly as possible”</p>
<p>The woman sniffed, “And yet issues are not resolved - the Stigma is spreading by the day, and the WRO sends its resources to Wutai and Rocket Town. It seems <i>almost</i> as if-”</p>
<p>It seemed<i> almost</i> as if the woman was turning out to be belligerent when she’d had a little too much champagne, Reeve was learning. </p>
<p>He was trying to find an elegant way to diffuse the situation without incident when all at once Barret was beside him, likely also drawn by the commotion. He tossed his arm back around Reeve’s shoulder, effectively making a wall between the teenager and Kalm’s difficult leader, and made a gesture that Yuffie should make her escape. </p>
<p>The Prime Minister made a sour face in response to the big man casually looming at Reeve’s side, then added, “Please, think of the former Midgar before sending your resources abroad Reeve. You were responsible for it, once.”</p>
<p>“And it’s in the capable hands of its new government now, with whom the WRO has been collaborating from the beginning,” he tried to ignore how warm the arm around him felt, how close in his periphery Barret had been since the interrupted moment back at the penthouse. </p>
<p>“And yet the reports out of Sector 0 persist,” she pressed, “consider the regional setbacks if another disaster like the one last year were to emerge again.”</p>
<p>“You’re dealing in unsubstantiated rumours, Prime Minister,” Reeve answered her, in spite of his own misgivings - there would be time enough to deal with the former Sector 0 when the summit had passed. </p>
<p>“It seems all kinds of rumours are proving true these days,” Palmer shot Barret a disapproving look before turning on her heels and storming off, presumably to appeal to the Mayor of Edge. </p>
<p>“Ha! And I thought I wouldn’t get to do anything fun at this party,” Barret grinned, and for a moment curled his hand possessively over Reeve’s bicep before stepping away, “What was she doing bothering Yuffie, anyway?” </p>
<p>Reeve took a moment to gather his thoughts past the lingering warmth of Barret’s hold, tried not to wonder why the man seemed so much more comfortable being close to him when they had an audience. </p>
<p>“Protecting the interests of Kalm, really. She’s not wrong to want to do her job,” Reeve admitted, although he would have preferred it not be done at the cost of bullying a teenager. </p>
<p>“Met her back in Rocket Town, you know, a while ago. She got into it with Cid,” Barret gave a short laugh at what must have been an explosive memory, “... prob’ly doesn’t help that you’ve showed up with a bunch of former terrorists to watch your back.” </p>
<p>They were interrupted by a member of the catering staff (another group of people who had been following Reeve quite closely, likely eager to earn future contracts) offering fresh flutes of champagne. </p>
<p>Reeve thanked the man - both for the drink and for the momentary distraction - before turning a wry expression on Barret. </p>
<p>“Didn’t you get the memo, Barret? AVALANCHE challenged the status quo and <i>won</i>. You weren’t terrorists, you were <i>freedom fighters</i>.” </p>
<p>Barret snorted, and Reeve let a small smile sneak onto his face - the events leading up to the fall of Shinra did still feel surreal a lot of the time - before continuing, “It may not be good for my public image, though, needing my 'boyfriend' to rescue me from my political colleagues.” </p>
<p>“Was comin’ to help Yuffie,” Barret protested, turning to look for the girl - but she had already made herself scarce, “Uh... you want me to take a walk before we land on another front page?” </p>
<p>Reeve felt a pang that he might have misspoken and quickly corrected himself, “That wasn’t what I meant. Please, stay.” </p>
<p>He fought the urge to fidget under the appraising look Barret answered him with, and thought backward briefly to the interrupted moment between them earlier in the evening. In spite of the months of effort that had gone into making the WRO summit happen, he found himself wishing desperately that he and Barret could have still been back at his penthouse for whatever it was that had been cut short when the rest of AVALANCHE had arrived.</p>
<p>“It isn’t to do with what’s in the papers. That’s fine,” Reeve paused then amended himself, “Well, <i>mostly</i> fine. It’s just... these events can be so fragile.” </p>
<p>Really, he <i>liked</i> what was being printed about them most of the time, in the privacy of his own mind - especially considering that it had opened a window for whatever it was they were currently dancing around. The possibility that his reputation as head of the WRO could be undermined, however, was an ongoing concern. His arrangement with Rufus was still a thing largely of the shadows (and thankfully not the subject of tabloid fodder) and it had placed him in a position that he wouldn't have chosen for himself. </p>
<p>“Speaking of,” Barret gestured to indicate the lavish event hall with the hand still grasping the stem of a champagne flute, “Seems like a whole lot of excess, for people trying to save the planet.” </p>
<p>“You can’t ask all of these people to completely change their lifestyles at once,” Reeve protested, “They’ll call it too radical and push back until the WRO loses its influence. We need to -” </p>
<p>He let himself trail off when he saw on Barret’s face that the other man already knew everything he was about to say, and allowed himself a small sigh. Barret, of course, had an instinct for leading people that Reeve could only hope to emulate. </p>
<p>Something of his thoughts must have showed on his face, because Barret told him in a low voice, “You look like you’d rather be behind the cat right now.” </p>
<p>He wasn’t wrong. </p>
<p>Many things had been easier before taking on the task of rebuilding. Harder too, in a lot of ways, but that was easy to forget in retrospect. The the gala only seemed to throw it into sharper contrast - how out of place Reeve’s other self was becoming in the new order. Barret’s argument against the excesses of the evening served to draw his attention to all the things they had done fine without, not so long ago. </p>
<p>Made him think that Barret had built a cause and an identity around going without, and that (Reeve’s eyes fell on the space where the gun arm would normally be, if not for the current company) maybe he wasn’t the only one feeling suddenly stifled by the three piece suit. </p>
<p>“I need to do one more tour of the room,” Reeve decided, then sighed as he looked at exactly how <i>much</i> room there was to tour, “but... maybe after that we could get out of here early.” </p>
<p>If anyone had been around to photograph the look Barret gave him in answer, the next morning’s scandal rags wouldn’t need to invent anything for the front page.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Please be advised that this is the chapter than earns the 'canon-typical violence' tag, and brace yourself if necessary</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Reeve's best efforts to get free of the WRO function before it’s dragging conclusion were foiled as one person after another made bids for the Director’s time. Barret looked on with amusement as the man’s eyes found him at intervals through the evening, shooting him expressions of exasperation as yet another regional delegate or organization leader sucked him into an extended debate. </p><p>On the one occasion that Reeve had managed to make his way back across the room to where Barret had retreated with Cloud into a quiet corner, he managed only to tell them to “save themselves” before being interrupted by a suit from Gongaga who seemed to have a lot to say about shellfish. </p><p>Cloud made good, quiet company though, and the familiar silence between them gave Barret more time to watch the room. He recognized the importance of the event, of course, and the week of meetings and negotiations that would follow it - but it wasn’t his scene even when he wasn’t already critically distracted. </p><p><i>Maybe we could get out of here early,</i> Reeve had said, and before that back at the penthouse had said the silly line about helping Barret undress. The second part especially felt surreal in the formal atmosphere of the cavernous event hall - but the cufflinks (still a small weight at his wrist) left a tangible reminder of the moment earlier, and of the charged potential between them before the rest of AVALANCHE had appeared and interrupted. </p><p>If they hadn’t been interrupted… </p><p>Barret sighed and ran his fingers across the link at his right sleeve in a pantomime of adjusting the set of the cuff. </p><p>He had wondered, at first (when the tabloids first started taking off with all those damn fool stories about the two of them), if his growing interest in the other man wasn’t just circumstantial. An idea put in his head and left there to simmer - flattering, sure, but not based on anything except the speculations of people who knew nothing about them and were trying to make a buck off their status as public figures. Just a stray thought allowed to get out of hand the more time he and Reeve spent together reading the papers and laughing about the thing that was becoming less and less of a joke. </p><p>He’d also wondered, for a while, if his attraction to Reeve wasn’t based entirely on how different the man was from Myrna - enough that he wouldn’t have to worry he was finding some <i>sameness</i> to fill the Myrna-shaped hole in his life... and maybe that <i>had</i> been a part of it, when he’d first considered the possibility weeks - no, if he was honest with himself <i>months</i> before - but that concern was long past. The previously unshaken conviction that the parts of his life related to romance were behind him with the loss of his wife was being chipped away at the more time he spent with Reeve. Made Barret suspect that he’d only been trying to fool himself, to protect himself - probably for longer than he’d realized. </p><p>And falling for Reeve had been easy, once he let it start - an realization reinforced by their closeness through the evening. Reeve’s solid frame in his arms, even in jest, had felt right and good and welcome. </p><p>Felt like it needed to happen again, and soon. </p><p>Across the room, Reeve was shooting him another desperate look from where Palmer had cornered him near the doors to the kitchen, and Barret let himself smile in response. Fought the urge to cross the room and pick up where they’d left off earlier.  Reeve was right - as much fun as it would have been to make a scene, the potential consequences would be far too damaging. He gave a small wave and laughed aloud when Reeve deflated with an expression of disappointment. </p><p>“Night’s almost over,” Cloud’s voice surprised him - Barret had nearly forgotten the silent young man beside him while getting lost in his head. </p><p>He worried for a moment that the former SOLDIER had some inclination as to what he had been thinking, but on glancing sideways saw just Cloud’s usual careful watchfulness while rubbing absentmindedly at his arm where the pink ribbon circled it. There was an intensity to the way Cloud scanned the crowd, and Barret felt a pang of sympathy for the guy. The kid’d never been one for even small crowds in all the time that Barret had known him, and the evening had to be wearing on his nerves even worse than it was on the rest of them. </p><p>“Sure is,” Barret agreed, “Hey, Spike... i don’t think anyone would mind if you took off now.”</p><p>The young man shook his head, “Tifa would notice.” </p><p>Barret glanced at him, but Cloud’s face was as impassive as ever. </p><p>“Yeah she would,” Barret agreed. <i>Reeve would notice too,</i> he didn’t say, but settled in with Cloud to wait out the evening. </p><p>--- </p><p>In spite of the late hour the press was everywhere when the event finally finished, eagerly following after the flood of the world’s leaders the way they would have done with celebrities and ranking Shinra officials before the world changed - and showing little deference to the WRO security lining the path from the event hall to the waiting vehicles. </p><p>AVALANCHE had gathered back around Reeve for their exit, ready to display for the swarm of photographers a show of solidarity with the WRO while they made their way to their own waiting car. </p><p>The fresh nighttime air of Junon was a relief to Barret after the closed atmosphere of the party, the ocean smell blowing from the coast crisp and clean since the Junon reactor had been shut down the year before. If Reeve had felt the pressure of the event, however, he had hidden it well. The one moment when he had proposed they leave early - had seemed itching to be somewhere else - quickly suppressed under practiced smiles and flawless manners, save the occasional joke that the rest of AVALANCHE might want to make their own excuses. </p><p>Watching Reeve a half step ahead of them, making his smiling appearance for the press, Barret could swear he could still feel the heat of the other man pressed against him, lingering from earlier in the evening. </p><p>There was something about the easy set of his shoulders - the way his managing the party had flowed directly into managing the press, even when by his own admission he would have rather been somewhere else a long time ago, that made Barret feel a sudden swell of affection. </p><p>Before he had fully formed the intention to do it he was opening his mouth and calling “Hey, Reeve.” </p><p>The hand raised to wave at the press faltered slightly, then dropped as Reeve turned to face Barret expectantly, smile moving from <i>perfect</i> to <i>real</i> in the space of a moment, and cementing Barret’s plan before he could think better of it. </p><p>“Want to give them something real to print this time?” </p><p>The man’s eyebrows shot up in inquiry, followed quickly by nervous understanding - but he gave the slightest nod in return. </p><p>Barret didn’t wait for him to change his mind - didn’t dare wait to lose his own nerve, either, the first time he’d done anything like it in more than five years. </p><p>He felt a twist of excited nerves as he reached to grab Reeve’s shoulder, draw him nearer as Barret stepped close and bent to kiss him, the whole world narrowing down to the moment when their lips pressed together. </p><p>It was quick and chaste - a warm point of contact just long enough for Reeve to lean toward him, place a gentle touch at his elbow - but in the moment before they parted the world lit up with the flash of cameras and the excitement of the press competing for the best shot. </p><p>The noise of the crowd was lost on Barret (on Reeve too, if the intensity of his expression was any indication), drowned out by his hammering heart and the ghost of touch against his lips, head buzzing from more than the champagne that had flowed through the evening. </p><p>Reeve looked as undone as he Barret felt - and he had a good vantage to judge from with just a few short inches between them. The man’s dark eyes locked on him made Barret sure that the colour in his features wasn’t just from the champagne, either, the quickness of his breath not from any exertion. </p><p>The frozen moment was broken by shouting close beside them - Cloud's silent vigilance broken as he barked out a warning.</p><p>“Get down!” </p><p>Barret was braced for trouble before the warning was fully out - head snapping to find the commotion in the crowd, instincts trained by the military and honed by his time in AVALANCHE making him cast a barrier spell around their group without thinking as he worked to identify the threat. </p><p>The spell snapped into place just in time to block the trajectory of a series of bullets, arriving almost before the sound of gunfire registered at all and pinging impotently off the wall of magic. </p><p>To their far left, a pained scream identified where someone else hadn’t been fast enough to mount a defence, and in his periphery Barret saw someone that he thought was the mayor of Junon grabbing at an injured shoulder as WRO security formed a protective ring around him. </p><p>“Down!” Cloud was shouting again into the crowd, already running down the steps toward the source of the gunfire with Yuffie close behind him, kicking off her heels as she ran. </p><p>Barret started to follow, then turned back to look at Reeve - not a fighter, never had been, unless from behind the absent Cait Sith. </p><p>“Reeve?” </p><p>But the man was scowling at the source of the shots with grim concentration, and a second loud <i>crack</i> sounding a moment later dragged Barret’s attention back to see the gunman flying backwards in a spray of blood, thrown by a massive backfire of his own weapon.</p><p>The crowd that wasn’t already rushing to get away turned tail at that, screaming as they went and throwing the scene into full chaos that surmounted the best efforts of the WRO forces to contain it - to protect the bystanders and to direct the attendees of the evening back inside the venue and under cover. </p><p>Cloud and Yuffie had nearly made their way to the shooter against the flow of the panicking crowd when hands wrapped over Barret’s arm and he turned to see Tifa beside him, face frantic as she yelled “<i>The kids!</i>”</p><p>“Shit!” Barret agreed, and looked more instrumentally at the roads around them, trying to think of the fastest way to get from where they were to the WRO HQ in the middle of a crisis. </p><p>“They’re okay,” Reeve told them, voice raised just enough to be heard over the noises of panic, expression distant in the way that indicated he was looking out from behind the eyes of the cat, “Cait Sith is with them, everything is still fine there.” </p><p>“Thank you,” Tifa told him, and Barret bobbed his head in agreement. </p><p>“Go take care of them,” Reeve instructed, “Cait Sith has informed the agents in charge that you’re on your way. I’ll take care of things here.” </p><p>Barret barely slowed down to clap a hand over Reeve’s shoulder before he was sprinting with Tifa toward HQ. </p><p>--- </p><p>It was hours later before Barret and Tifa made it back to Reeve’s penthouse with the kids, where Cait Sith had guided them using one of the WRO’s armoured vehicles after the worst of the incident was under control. </p><p>Barret’s panic to reach Marlene, which had broken only after she was safely in his arms, left him feeling anxious and unstuck as they waited for the rest of the team, in spite of the reassurances and updates filtering to them through Cait Sith. </p><p>The wait felt like it would be even more unbearable once Marlene and Denzel were tucked into one of the guest rooms to sleep off the excitement of the evening - knowing that he and Tifa no longer needed to hide their anxiety about the comrades still out dealing with whatever was happening in the rest of Junon</p><p>Barret sighed as he closed the door to the kids’ room behind himself and wandered back toward the sitting room, pulling off his tie as he did and dropping it over where his suit jacket was already laid across the back of a chair. </p><p>“Do you think the attack was directed at the WRO?” Tifa asked him when he dropped into a chair across from her. Her own nervous energy was directed into repeatedly rubbing the balls of her feet, sore from running across half the damn city in her impractical shoes. </p><p>“The hell do I know?” Barret sighed, and let his eyes fall on the low coffee table between them, still holding the drinks abandoned there earlier, and the empty box that had held the gift from Reeve. </p><p>“You do work with them, maybe you know something we don’t, in Edge.” </p><p>Barret shook his head. He looked over at Cait Sith to see if the little animal could offer any further insights, but the plush cat gave every impression of being fast asleep across the back of the sofa, worn out from a long evening with the kids even before the shit hit the fan, “I’m mostly in the field. Haven’t heard of any groups specifically after the WRO. Seemed like they were shootin’ at everybody.” </p><p>Tifa frowned, then reached out to scratch Cait Sith behind the ears. He purred but didn’t wake up, removing any chance that Reeve might update them with further information. </p><p>Reeve...</p><p>Reeve was nearly shot in the incident - might actually have been if Barret had been half a second slower to react, and the knowledge that his barrier spell <i>had</i> been in time didn’t stop the buzz of anxiety in his nerves when he thought of it. The sick feeling when he thought about the alternative. </p><p>“You’re getting lost,” Tifa told him, and he offered her the best smile he could manage in return. </p><p>“Just thinking about things,” he answered.</p><p>“I bet,” Tifa said, then looked at him thoughtfully, “... just before the attack...” </p><p>Barret winced. Yes, that. Bit of a ruined moment, there. </p><p>“Can we talk about it later?” he asked.</p><p>“Of course,” Tifa answered, and slumped back into the sofa, “Guess we’ve just got to wait.” </p><p>---</p><p>They did wait, nearly another two hours before the front door opened to admit the other members of their party along with a small contingent of WRO security - the latter of which did a quick tour of the penthouse before Reeve shooed them back out on the grounds that, filled as it was with the heroes of the Jenova Crisis, his home was the safest place in the city. </p><p>Cloud began to explain as soon as the door closed behind the agents that they had decided AVALANCHE would stay at the penthouse overnight to provide their own security while the WRO team swept the city to make sure everything was under control.</p><p>While the young man was talking, Reeve (looking tired and more than a little shaken to Barret’s observation) disappeared into a back bedroom with Cait Sith at his heels - emerging only briefly to distribute sleepwear that was clearly from his own closet to the group gathered in the sitting room. </p><p>When he arrived at Barret, Reeve handed him a large souvenir t-shirt and a pair of drawstring sweatpants with an apology that he didn’t have anything better that he thought would fit. Then he was moving toward the back room again before Barret could answer or ask if he was alright - mumbling as he went something about watching his mail as the reports came in. </p><p>Barret decided that <i>shaken</i> wasn’t a strong enough word for Reeve’s behaviour, for all that he had reacted with speed and certainty in the moment of crisis. </p><p>He watched Reeve go, then looked down at the clothes in his hands, and at the rest of AVALANCHE slowly moving off to make themselves at home for the night. </p><p>Before Tifa could also disappear he stopped her to help him with his cufflinks, a rueful reminder of <i>all</i> the ways the evening had been derailed. </p><p>“These are nice,” she commented between yawns - visibly exhausted in the wake of the crisis.  She turned one over in her hand and raised an eyebrow as she spotted the engraving, “were they... a gift?” </p><p>Barret considered protesting, then saw the twinkle of mischief she was directing at him in spite of her fatigue. Of course she had seen the kiss on the steps just like everyone else, before everything went to hell. He decided that it was enough that she hadn’t started grilling him before things calmed down. </p><p>“Yeah,” he finally answered, closing his hand around the items in question when Tifa dropped them into his palm, “pretty great, huh?”</p><p>“So, you and Reeve,” the smile she fixed him with was tired, but still managed to convey she was holding back a bigger grin only through a concerted effort, “what’s that like?”</p><p>Barret scrubbed at the back of his neck with the knuckles of the hand still holding the cufflinks. It crossed his mind to avoid the question, to put it off until he had better answers to the questions he was still asking himself - but it had been years since he’d bothered hiding anything from Tifa. </p><p>“It’s like it’s something so close, when it’s just us,” he admitted, letting his eyes wander to the hallway leading back to the bedrooms, “but... but it’s also like a big joke, when everyone is watching, you know?” </p><p>He turned his attention back to the young woman in front of him only to be met with a shrewd expression he’d learned to dread a long time ago. </p><p>“Does Reeve think it’s a joke?”</p><p>“I... aww hell, Tifa, I don’t know,” Barret admitted, and knew as soon as he said it that of course, that was a question he should have thought to ask a while ago - sure, the guy had gotten really into laughing over the papers, but the rest...</p><p>Tifa just hummed lowly in reply, a new response in her repertoire that reminded him all over again that she wasn’t the teenager he’d first met back in Midgar. He didn’t have to break his head to figure out she didn’t approve, though. </p><p>He excused himself to an empty room to change clothes for the night, over-tired and mind so full he worried that he wasn’t ever going to get a chance to think about all the things he really needed to think about. </p><p>The t-shirt Reeve had handed him, bright blue with a loud print instructing him to <i>Hang Ten in Costa del Sol!</i>, was almost certainly not going to fit. He didn’t feel good about possibly ripping it, either - could imagine such items were something of a rarity in the WRO Director’s wardrobe, and wondered vaguely what sequence of events had led to the one that Barret was currently holding in his hands. </p><p>The man had been so <i>pale</i> when he arrived home. </p><p>Barret set the shirt aside and decided to check on Reeve a final time before heading to bed himself. </p><p>--- </p><p>When Barret woke the next morning and wandered into the front of the penthouse, he found a bustle of activity that hardly reflected the stress and worry of the night before - Tifa and Yuffie had taken over the kitchen to make coffee and set out breakfast supplies across the large dining area (Tifa automatically, and Yuffie working to emulate her in a way that was more charming than the teenager would probably be happy to know). </p><p>Cloud was already standing at the table, solemnly unpacking paper bags of takeaway breakfast next to a tall stack of morning papers.</p><p>Barret itched to grab the papers, to find out the official line on the attack the night before, when noise from the sitting room caught his attention. </p><p>He rounded the corner to see what appeared to be Marlene and Cait Sith teaching Denzel that the WRO Director would tolerate being used as a jungle gym. </p><p>And Reeve, for his part, looking like someone who <i>hadn’t</i> nearly been shot the night before - shirt sleeves rolled up and laughing as Marlene hung from one forearm and Cait Sith from the other. </p><p>Barret found himself frozen in the room's entrance, transfixed by the unexpected scene, until Marlene noticed him and shouted “Papa!” and Reeve turned with the pair still swinging from him, then looked suddenly embarrassed when he saw Barret watching them. </p><p>“Mornin’” Barret greeted, and was half disappointed when Reeve answered by dropping his arms until the little girl and the cat were both firmly planted on solid ground. </p><p>“Barret. Did you sleep well?” </p><p>“Not so much,” Barret answered, then realizing how it sounded added, “nothin’ wrong with the hospitality. Just...” </p><p>“Quite,” Reeve agreed, slipping away from the kids with a small apology, then past Barret too to move to the table. </p><p>“You kids okay?” Barret asked the group left in the sitting room, and accepted a chorus of confirmation (from the actual kids and from Cait Sith, who clearly identified himself as part of the group) before moving over to the table himself in time to watch Reeve accepting a coffee from Tifa with a nod of thanks.</p><p>There was something entirely too interesting about the way Reeve accepted the mug, Barret thought, forearms exposed to highlight the elegant and strong motions of his hands. </p><p>And Tifa was watching him <i>and</i> Reeve, Barret was noticing - the sharp expression from the night before aimed in his direction again. While he could understand her curiosity, all things considered... he felt an edge of discomfort that he wasn’t used to feeling around her - a feeling like she had him figured out before he’d fully figured himself out. </p><p>It left him feeling uncertain and out of his depth, and made him grab for the pile of morning papers so that he would have something to concentrate on that wasn’t going to keep Tifa looking at him that way. </p><p>Before he could grab any of the major Junon publications, however, Yuffie was smacking one of the tabloids into his hand instead.</p><p>“Here’s the scoop you really want,” she grinned, displaying all of the mischief he remembered from their long journey together and before she’d taken up the mantle of responsibility for Wutai. He grinned at her enthusiasm before turning his attention to the newsprint while she narrated, “It was really the attack of a jealous lover!” </p><p>Sure enough, he and Reeve had made the front page again - the daring kiss of the night before landing them front and center for the world to see, no editing needed there - but the blurry image introduced into the background...</p><p>“Is that Vincent?” Tifa asked, leaning over Barret’s shoulder to get a better look.</p><p>“Oh my <i>gawd</i> it is!” Yuffie exclaimed, grabbing the paper back for closer inspection, “I see it now!” </p><p>Relieved to have the girls’ attention off him for a while, Barret glanced over to where Reeve was failing to hide laughter behind his coffee, winking when he noticed Barret’s gaze on him. </p><p>And really, Barret didn’t know what else he had expected from the scandal rags but to introduce some new scandal when the old one had been validated and was clearly <i>old news.</i> </p><p>He winked back, and was starting to grab one of the real papers from the neglected pile - possibly find an update about the mayor’s injury the night before - when Cait Sith ran frantically into the room and looped around the table before taking off into a hallway. </p><p>Watching the cat go, a suspicion began to form in his mind. </p><p>“When the gun backfired last night,” Barret started, turning his attention on Reeve, “Was that you?” </p><p>“... I may have had some involvement,” Reeve admitted, turning his full attention to his coffee. </p><p>“Huh,” Barret answered. </p><p>The thought got away from him as the cat blasted back through the room and over the table, knocking a carafe of coffee in his wake and causing a mad scramble to clean the resulting mess.</p><p>The day accelerated from there, a flood of interviews and paperwork with WRO security and then the press and after that all the various guards and secret service agents who had accompanied the world elites attending the event the night before. </p><p>There had been no reason to think that the shooter hadn’t been acting alone. No group had come forward to take responsibility for the attack - but the lack of resolution left the entire city worried and on edge, the air full of tension as people sheltered in their homes. </p><p>By early afternoon Cloud and Tifa had left with the kids back for Edge - as much Barret’s idea as theirs, to get Marlene out of harm’s way as quickly as possible, although it hurt like hell to see her go so soon after arriving. The sting of their departure, however, had to be pushed aside for discussions with the WRO security forces, and the consensus that their numbers needed to be increased to keep the city - and world leadership - safe. </p><p>Barret picked up the argument readily, the vivid memory of the night before when the first shots were too soon and too close and too frightening. </p><p>When the WRO security chief asked him to take a temporary post on-site in Junon until they’d fully investigated the cause of the incident, he didn’t say no.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Stop squirming.” </p><p>“Ahh, kinda hard.” </p><p>“Really?” Barret gave a small tug on Reeve’s belt, a little too rough and drawing him up on the balls of his feet.</p><p>Reeve knew he was being teased, but he also suspected that the man’s smile was more pleased than it would be over just a punchline, and Reeve’s breath (already a quick since he’d realized that outfitting him for concealed carry was something Barret wanted to do <i>personally</i>) sped up a little more. </p><p>“Are you twelve?” he asked to deflect the situation, but Barret was already tugging and shoving at his waist again, checking the fit of the holster meant to rest beneath the fall of his suit. </p><p>In spite of his objection, Reeve was increasingly aware that he was finding the entire ordeal substantially more exciting than he would have if some other member of WRO security had brought him the gear. </p><p>The week of the interrupted summit had passed, and one more since, in a blur of meetings, PR people, and organizational reshuffling to put a higher emphasis on security. And things had been good, in spite of the attack during the opening evening. With no one seriously injured, the meetings had continued - although it had resulted in smaller working groups than initially planned, the sense of nervous solidarity had resulted in easier inter-state negotiations than much of the WRO planning staff had initially hoped. </p><p>While the identity of the attacker remained a mystery, Rufus had volunteered the services of the Turks to look into the matter further. Not what Reeve’s first choice would have been in light of the unit’s history, but undeniably effective when they went into motion. </p><p>Reeve’s appraisal of the week’s success wasn’t hurt when Barret had stayed in town even after the congregation of leaders and delegates had returned home - taking over command of a small task force responsible for reviewing security protocols. </p><p>He suppressed a small noise as Barret gave a final tug at the holster and apparently was satisfied, then breathed out a sigh of relief when the man finally slid his hand free of Reeve’s jacket to brush over the fall of his suit. </p><p>His reaction to Barret’s touch <i>had</i> in fact been getting embarrassing, close and commanding so near to other, more interesting areas. </p><p>“I really do think this is excessive,” Reeve frowned as Barret offered him the small but powerful handgun that fit the holster, “The WRO is a peaceful organization, it doesn’t look good that -” </p><p>“The WRO controls the planet’s largest militia,” Barret cut him off. </p><p>“The WRO has <i>Peacekeepers</i>,” Reeve corrected him, and ignored the snort he received in return, “And if I can’t show confidence in my own staff to maintain order...” </p><p>He trailed off when Barret sighed and made a placating gesture, “... I’d feel better if you wore it.” </p><p>And Reeve couldn’t find a single argument to offer against <i>that</i>. </p><p>In the two weeks since the attack at the WRO event (the two weeks since they had first kissed, recorded for posterity by the dozens of photographers on site for the evening) there hadn’t been time for them to be together for reasons other than work - and even then moments alone were a rare commodity. </p><p>In light of which, it was taking rather a lot of Reeve’s self control not to answer the physical closeness between them with more of the same. Barret had admitted - in one of the few moments they did have to themselves, when it became clear that Barret would get only so close, then no closer - that he didn’t want to jump directly into bed. <i>The beginning is so short</i>, he’d offered by way of explanation - and while Reeve didn’t understand it, he was doing his damnedest to respect it. </p><p>Even if Barret’s hand, back inside his jacket to slide the handgun into place and tug at the holster again, was seriously at risk of escalating matters. If Reeve let himself lean into the strong touch the way he wanted to. </p><p>Gun safety be damned, it was the nearest he’d gotten to more than a few stolen kisses since the night all of AVALANCHE had stayed at the penthouse, when -</p><p>
  <i>- When he’d excused himself, exhausted, to his bedroom after distributing nightclothes to his unexpected guests - the former AVALANCHE members gathered together reflexively following the close call. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>He was sitting up to read the WRO security reports as they arrived on his tablet, Cait Sith curled on his feet, when Barret knocked and entered. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>Reeve looked up from his reading to see the other man already dressed for sleep (his earlier offer to help Barret with the cufflinks seemed like it had happened a million years before - and anyway someone had clearly beaten him to it) wearing the one oversized pair of sweatpants that had been the only thing in Reeve’s wardrobe with a hope of fitting Barret, but were still snug over his muscular frame in a way that left little to the imagination. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>Reeve cleared his throat and made an effort to keep his gaze north of the border. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Everyone’s settling in okay,” Barret reported, “Kids had to double up but everyone else found a bed. Hell of a place, Reeve.” </i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Perk of the job,” Reeve allowed, “Have to keep up appearances.” </i>
</p><p>
  <i>Reeve set his tablet aside and began to stand but Barret gestured for him to stay seated, instead taking the few steps needed to sit on the edge of the bed himself and giving a small shrug when Reeve made a noise of inquiry. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Hope it’s okay.. there’s something I’ve been wanting to do properly all evening,” Barret told him, voice deeper and softer Reeve was used to hearing it. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>Without leaving space for a reply, Barret reached out to cradle the nape of his neck and kiss him, slowly and with unexpected sweetness that left Reeve delighted and unbalanced when they broke apart some moments later. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Glad you took care of that, then,” Reeve answered when he had gathered his wits, letting the hand at his nape keep their foreheads resting gently together. He realized that his hands had at some point moved of their own accord to rest against Barret’s bare chest, one thumb brushing at the dusting of coarse hair over hard muscle. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>He considered pulling his hands back, then didn’t.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Good,” Barret agreed after a pause, then as if reluctant to do it dropped his hand from where it was petting Reeve’s hair and sat back. He cleared his throat before asking with sudden formality, “Would you feel better with someone to stay with you tonight, after everything?” </i>
</p><p>
  <i>Reeve found himself blinking hard and shaking his head, thrown off at the sudden shift in tone, “No, it’s fine. I have Cait Sith with me if anything happens, after all.” </i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Right,” Barret nodded, standing, and Reeve realized his mistake too late. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>Before he could correct himself, Barret had patted his knee a few times and was headed out the door saying, “I’m gonna go check on Marlene one more time before I turn in.” </i>
</p><p>
  <i>When the door clicked softly shut behind him, Reeve raised a hand to his lips in frustrated disbelief. He briefly considered following Barret, trying to repair the missed moment, but the thought of disturbing the nighttime silence of a rare houseful of his dearest friends held him back. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>Cait Sith, who had for his part been pretending not to watch the exchange, sat up and observed, “Yer a pure bampot.” </i>
</p><p>
  <i>“You’re not wrong,” Reeve sighed, and let his hand drop onto the cat’s head, scratching behind his ears without thinking. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>The next morning his penthouse was full with the kind of life and activity he had hoped for when he’d initially moved into the damn place - making him realize that for the first time, it didn’t feel like a big empty necessity for keeping up appearances. </i>
</p><p>“Still with me, Reeve?”</p><p>Reeve blinked once, then nodded, “With you. Sorry.” </p><p>“How’s the cat?” </p><p>“Oh. Asleep in the air vents, I think,” he answered, realizing that his moment’s reverie had been mistaken for a moment as the cat, “I was thinking of the other night, actually.” </p><p>Barret’s hand stilled against his side, fit of the holster clearly forgotten as his strong fingers curled incrementally against Reeve’s flank.</p><p>“Oh yeah?” Barret asked with a small smile starting to form at the corner of his mouth. </p><p>Instead of answering, Reeve glanced at the office door - safely closed, their meeting the last one scheduled for the afternoon - and stepped forward into Barret’s space. The kiss at the WRO event had been unwise (the PR people had spared no pains making it clear to both of them, once they were done managing the larger crisis) but in the privacy of the Commissioner's office...</p><p>Reeve had to go up on his toes to kiss Barret, something new and novel in his experience. In response the taller man used the hand already at Reeve’s side to stabilize him, guiding both of them until Barret was able to seat himself on the edge of the desk and bring them closer to level. </p><p>Reeve took the opportunity to deepen the kiss as he slid between Barret’s knees, to move his hands over Barret’s broad shoulder, grip the solid muscle beneath the soft cotton of the shirt he wore at the same time that Barret’s hand was sliding up his back beneath his suit jacket, encouraging him closer. </p><p>There had been a handful of stolen moments the same - each time a new thrill - since the evening of the attack, although that night still marked the only occasion since on which they had spent time together outside of work. </p><p>Reeve was realizing that being in the office was safer, somehow, for Barret - that they couldn’t go too long without the need to be professional reasserting itself, that there were limits imposed by the risk of getting caught (Reeve had some very strong feelings of his own about the latter issue, namely that it was half the fun, but didn’t think Barret was quite there yet). </p><p>Pressing breathlessly together, however, it was hard to remember why they were taking things slow. It wasn’t something that Reeve was used to, the feeling that there was something tangible between them that they weren’t yet acting on - but with the implicit promise that they would. </p><p>Reeve allowed himself to make a pleased noise into the kiss when Barret tugged him insistently closer, almost crushingly tight in a way in a way that felt like more than just the future promise of sex, in spite of their position. </p><p>It made him want more - more of the closeness and the kisses, yes, but also more <i>time</i>, and the answer to whatever promise was behind Barret’s careful insistence on going slow and ‘doing it right’. </p><p>He let his mouth drift from Barret’s, trailing down his neck in a rasping of beard and stubble to where he could start placing small kisses and nips against sensitive skin, until he <i>felt</i> the pleased rumble of Barret’s answer before he heard it, the man tilting his head aside to give him better access. </p><p><i>Come over tonight,</i> Reeve nearly asked again, as the sound moved through him and turned into a flush of heat that sat low in his belly - an invitation declined the first time he’d made it with the explanation of going slow, but in the moments when they were already <i>so close</i>…</p><p>He was saved making the decision when the phone rang, making Barret flinch and Reeve let out a small curse. </p><p>“I need to take it,” he mumbled against Barret’s neck, and felt the other man nod in reply. </p><p>Reeve waited an entire two rings, the sound obnoxiously intrusive in the otherwise silent office, trying to catch his breath and center his attention before grabbing the receiver. </p><p>It was Elena (always one of the better Turks, Reeve thought, although he wasn’t overjoyed to hear from her under the <i>particular</i> circumstances) giving him a quick and efficient report on what the Turks and WRO intelligence had dug up about the summit shooting. </p><p>A few small groups <i>had</i> stepped forward to claim responsibility for the attack - all checked out and proved to be attention seekers - and one more likely group that <i>hadn’t</i> claimed responsibility, operating out of the ruins of Midgar. The last group was more worrying, as they appeared to have some association with the WRO employee dismissed some months prior due to his relationship with the press. The group had also been loosely tied to local missing person reports as well, although that part was hard to trace with so many vagrants and drifters inhabiting what was left of the Midgar slums. </p><p>She parted by suggesting that he increase his security until the issue was properly resolved, considering his position as the head of the world’s largest militia (he cringed at being reminded a second time the same afternoon), and opined that he was sure to have a target painted on his back just as much as any other prominent leader, if not more so. </p><p>Thanking her and dropping the phone back into its cradle, he turned to Barret. </p><p>“She wants me to have more security too - can you believe that?” </p><p>“Good girl,” Barret nodded his approval, and Reeve thought it might be the first time he’d seen the man approving of one of the Turks. </p><p>When Reeve tried to slide back into the position he’d abandoned to answer the damnable phone, Barret held up a hand to interrupt him then indicated the gun Reeve had already forgotten at his side, “She’s right. We’ll start by getting you comfortable with that thing.” </p><p>“It’s fine as it is,” Reeve lied - it chaffed once his attention was brought back to it, but he didn’t care to linger over it. </p><p>“Can you draw it easily?” Barret prompted him, undeterred, and Reeve made a few obliging attempts - the draw was clean and unhindered, although he thought he would need to build the muscle memory before he could grab it readily. </p><p>“How did you learn so much about concealed carry, anyway?” Reeve wondered aloud as he practiced the motion, nodding toward Barret’s gun arm to add, “Doesn’t seem your style.” </p><p>“Had to outfit the rest of AVALANCHE too, didn't I?” Barret shrugged, and Reeve felt momentarily foolish because <i>of course he did</i> - but didn’t get the chance for the feeling to take hold before Barret continued, “You know how that thing works?” </p><p>It was Reeve’s turn to feel a flash of irritation, tucking the handgun away in his belt before answering, “I did basic training like everyone else, during the war.” </p><p>“That was nearly twenty years ago,” Barret frowned, “It’s not going to help you when there are so many threats -” </p><p>“<i>One</i> threat,” Reeve interrupted him, “And the man is in custody now.” </p><p>“There will be others,” Barret answered darkly, frustration at the edges of his voice, “Shinra loyalists, anti-establishment groups, plain crazies with guns. I can’t... be there all the time. Neither can WRO security, and it-”</p><p>He cut himself off but the rest of the sentence - <i>it scares me and I hate it</i> - was plain enough on his face, and Reeve felt his irritation wane. </p><p>Even so, the lingering mixture of arousal and irritation was setting Reeve’s nerves on edge. He nodded his agreement then made an effort to change the subject. </p><p>Grabbing the most recent tabloid from the corner of his desk, where it had gone neglected in favour of dealing with more pressing security concerns, he tossed it to Barret while asking, “Did you see the newest development?”</p><p>“Good photo,” Barret nodded his approval. </p><p>The front page was just of Vincent, the newest subject of scandal since Reeve and Barret had ceased to be a subject of speculation, although the headline did suggest that the former Turk had some connection to WRO related sex scandals. It was one more level of absurdity on top of the previous ones - apparently the heroes of Meteorfall were good for selling papers. Further engagement with the genre on Reeve’s part had turned up instances of Tifa, Cid and Yuffie all having their own turn on the front page. </p><p>“I believe you’ll like this one,” Reeve hummed, “If you turn to page five, you’ll see that in fact we’ve been orchestrating illicit orgies involving robots and Chaos.” </p><p>Barret opened the paper to the specified page and snorted with amusement, “Well, scandal’s gotta run… C’mon, I booked us a car to get to the shooting range.” </p><p>---</p><p>The car was a light armoured vehicle from the WRO motor pool, and the shooting range turned out to be a collection of old bottles lined up across a boulder, an hour out from the city. </p><p>“You ever used one of these models before?” Barret asked while handing across a few extra clips to feed into the handgun. </p><p>“Just like riding a bike, isn’t it?” Reeve answered flippantly, and hoped he was right.</p><p>The scowl Barret directed him said that it most certainly was <i>not</i>, and Reeve suppressed an urge to cringe, tried to remember the shooting stance he had learned as a young man before discovering his distaste for violence and everything that went with it. </p><p>Of course, there was more than one way to handle a weapon...</p><p>He concentrated on reaching out to the gun, looked for something intrinsic in the metal and the design - some intention left there by the creator in the form and function of the instrument - and when a tingle of recognition moved between his palm and the grip, he fired. </p><p>The bottles exploded, one after another, targeted perfectly on the first try. </p><p>Barret was staring at him hard, Reeve saw, and he couldn’t resist theatrically raising the gun to blow some imaginary smoke from the barrel of the weapon.</p><p>He tucked it quickly back into the holster when Barret’s expression stayed serious. </p><p>“Did you just... do to the gun what you did to that moogle in Edge?” </p><p>“... Basically,” Reeve admitted, “It seemed like the fastest way.” </p><p>“Could have told me,” Barret frowned, “we could have skipped the trip.” </p><p>Except that Reeve wasn’t sure, until he’d done it, whether he was going to be able to at all. He also thought that might be more worrying for Barret than a simple agreement. </p><p>“If I’d told you, then we wouldn’t have been able to make out in the car.” </p><p>They did, although the WRO vehicle had clearly not been designed with that purpose in mind (cramped and uncomfortable, with an oversized central console wedged between them). But the setting made Reeve feel like being teenagers again, which was good in its own way. </p><p>And for once, they weren’t interrupted by <i>anybody</i>.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Please note the RATING JUMP this chapter. </p>
<p>Warnings on this one for minor discussion of disability (throughout) and for masturbation in the final scene. If the latter is not your thing, please stop reading at the scene that begins with Barret going upstairs from the bar, and proceed to the next chapter.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I think I’m dating Reeve.” </p>
<p>“You <i>think?</i>”</p>
<p>Barret couldn’t tell if Tifa’s raising voice was curious or accusatory, but it made him glance at Cait Sith, still sleeping obliviously in a patch of the morning sunlight that flooded the 7th Heaven’s back kitchen. </p>
<p>“Not like the tabloids, I mean,” he continued, turning back to see Tifa’s increasingly amused expression, “really dating.” </p>
<p>“I know,” Tifa answered, already returning to the task of sliding some dishes away into a cupboard. When Barret hesitated she paused gave him another look, “That is, unless you <i>actually</i> ran away to get married at the Gold Saucer last week like the papers - oh, forget it. You weren’t trying to be subtle, were you? When you kissed him at the WRO...” </p>
<p>Barret rubbed sheepishly at the back of his neck and tried to remember that the young woman in front of him was exactly that - no longer the teenager she had been when they first met, and that his impulse to hold back personal matters was a relic of a much earlier time. </p>
<p>“Since about then, I guess,” he agreed, and let a smile form at the corner of his mouth as he thought about the night of the event, and the stolen moments since. </p>
<p>“Congratulations,” Tifa met his smile, warm and genuine and with a hint of mischief that wasn’t enough to prepare him for what she said next, “I’m just glad I can stop pretending to put Reeve in a guest room when he visits.” </p>
<p>Barret choked, “Uh, no, the rooms are fine. We’re. We’re not quite there yet.” </p>
<p>“Oh,” that did surprise her, he saw as her eyes widened and she paused a too long-moment before clearing her throat, “That’s. Well. I’m sorry, it’s been weeks, I guess I assumed…”</p>
<p>Barret felt acutely grateful that Reeve had gone directly to the former Midgar with Cloud and the WRO investigation team after arriving on an overnight flight, and wasn’t there to witness what was deteriorating into an awkward conversation at the 7th Heaven. </p>
<p>Awkwardness aside, Tifa wasn’t alone in thinking things had moved slowly. </p>
<p>Reeve had been patient, not pressing but leaving an open invitation for Barret to <i>spend the night</i> any time he wanted - back at the penthouse where Barret hadn’t dared venture since the night of the attack at the WRO Summit. It felt too much like stepping over some critical point of no return. </p>
<p>Part of that was just nerves, Barret was sure - the edge of something new, the first time he’d been in a new relationship in over twenty years. Along with that, the not knowing what it would be like to be with a man (all the way, and not just the small touches and flirtations they had stalled at). Still, a bigger part of his hesitation came from a determination to take it slow. To do it right. To make it matter. Not like the one night affairs and the heartbreak he’d seen in and out of the doors at the 7th Heaven back when it stood in Sector 7. Not like his buddies back in Corel, once upon a time, who were so busy chasing the finish line only to realize once they got there everything that had gone wrong along the way. </p>
<p>He didn’t want to do that with someone who mattered. </p>
<p>“It’s just, we’ve been busy. And there’s a lot of stuff to consider,” he paused and examined his coffee intently, glanced again at the sleeping Cait Sith, looked out the window, “Like what’s Marlene gonna think?” </p>
<p>Through the window he could see Marlene playing in the back garden with Nanaki, who had let her straddle his back for ‘chocobo rides’ to her delight. The Cosmo Beast had reappeared from the wilderness recently, quieter than ever but still carrying the gentle kindness that Barret remembered from their time travelling together. </p>
<p>He watched his daughter curl her fingers into the massive predator’s mane, completely unafraid of the raw power he represented in a way that had taken Barret weeks to achieve when they’d first met. Watching her laughing expression, he was amazed as ever by the incaution of youth. </p>
<p>“Marlene’s not going to be upset that she gets to spend more time with <i>Uncle Reeve,</i>” Tifa drew his attention back to the kitchen, “You know she already loves him.” </p>
<p>“I know she does,” he agreed, sipping thoughtfully from his mug, “So what happens when he changes his mind, or gets bored, or... what?” </p>
<p>He broke off at Tifa incredulous expression. </p>
<p>“Barret, Reeve’s been crazy about you since we all met him.” </p>
<p>“He was a cat when we met him.” </p>
<p>Reminded by his own objection, Barret glanced again at Cait Sith - once Reeve’s spy but now (mostly) his own personality. </p>
<p>The cat flicked one ear in his sleep then rolled over to expose his soft white belly to the morning sun, continuing to snore softly. </p>
<p>“He was <i>your</i> cat when we met him,” Tifa corrected.</p>
<p>Barret thought she was over-attributing, or at least romanticizing, the often intense debates he’d had with the cat - back before the man behind it had finally appeared in person to deliver Marlene whole and unharmed, and to help coordinate the rebuilding project outside the ruins of Midgar. </p>
<p>He didn’t dare push the matter at risk of drawing the attention of Cait Sith and, by extension, of Reeve... but his eyes stayed on the sleeping cat.</p>
<p>“This isn’t the way I expected my life to turn out, you know,” he admitted before he realized he was going to, “Myrna...”</p>
<p>Before Barret had noticed it happening Tifa had stopped what she was doing to wrap her hands around his, fixing him with an arrestingly sad smile that had no business on her soft features. </p>
<p>“This isn’t the life that any of us expected,” some dark emotion moved behind her eyes, then cleared, “Does it make you happy anyway?” </p>
<p>He swallowed hard. </p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Reeve still wasn’t wearing the damned gun. </p>
<p>His face would cramp with guilt, when Barret reminded him of it, but still always had some argument to go along with it - that it chafed, was too hot, was uncomfortable to wear through the hours at his desk... and he always managed to forget it before leaving his home or office, to Barret’s mixed amusement and irritation. He frequently complained that the holster made him feel over-wrapped. </p>
<p>
  <i>(“Makes you sound like a present,” Barret had answered to that the first time - and when Reeve had grinned and answered, “Aren’t I, though?”, Barret had lost the thread of the conversation in the long slow kisses that had begun to punctuate their time alone).</i>
</p>
<p>None of which changed that Reeve had some funny ideas about what constituted personal security. </p>
<p>It didn’t help that the man played everything close to his chest - surely a holdover from the hostile environment of Shinra’s corporate culture, but still Barret felt frustrated and cut out. From whatever was going on with the strange powers the man used, from the scope of the things happening in the old Midgar, from the fleet of doppelgängers under development Reeve wouldn’t offer more than a few sentences on before changing the subject. At some point, Barret knew, he would need to push matters, but for the short term he was ready to let Reeve work up to it at his own speed.</p>
<p>The man in question, in all his reticence, was half-asleep against Barret’s shoulder where they sat in the family room - having reappeared from a trip on the back of Cloud’s Fenrir shortly after noon, tired and slightly green from the ordeal. The investigation of the old Shinra building in turn had been left in the questionable (if capable) hands of Reno and Rude in tandem with half the WRO team trained in the Mythril Mines. </p>
<p>Scheduled to return to Junon the next morning, Reeve had agreed to self-defence classes with Tifa in the interim, following the insistence of not just Barret and his security team but the rest of AVALANCHE as well - although the training itself was put on hold until the man woke up and got his land-legs back. </p>
<p>Barret cast another cure spell when Reeve groaned against his shoulder with lingering motion sickness - and although he suspected that the illness had been largely theatrical for at least the last half hour, the close contact and warm affection that accompanied it were not. The closeness (once something only Barret had initiated while acting out the silly tabloid stories) had become something Reeve sought out given the opportunity - and the chaste, comforting press of their bodies together still had the power to send a small thrill of excitement bouncing around behind Barret’s ribcage.</p>
<p>On the room’s television, a cartoon chocobo and moogle duo were well on their way to solving a mystery when Cloud entered, fixing Barret with one of the small upward tics of his lips that would be a grin on anyone else. “Tifa’s looking for you two.” </p>
<p>Barret gave a small nod to Cloud, gave a small shake to the man at his side, until Reeve made a protest without waking up and settled in deeper. </p>
<p>“Marlene wanted to watch cartoons.”</p>
<p>“Marlene is in the kitchen with Cait Sith,” Cloud answered, funny not-smile creeping more firmly into place, “Cait’s teaching her to feed Red peanut butter. Out of the jar. It’s. You should come.” </p>
<p>If Barret suspected the young man was about to laugh, he knew better than to point it out. </p>
<p>—-</p>
<p>It wasn’t that Barret couldn’t have taught Reeve all the hand-to-hand he needed personally, of course - he’d done enough of that back in the early days of AVALANCHE, with all the young recruits who’d never learned it after mandatory military service had disappeared under the post-war regime. Of course, Reeve had gone through basic training at the time just like the rest of their generation - but there was a world of difference between a skill in regular practice and one that had been left behind for the exigencies of a desk job.</p>
<p><i>Tifa’s closer to your build,</i> Barret had explained instead of volunteering. It was true - and also true that she was much, much better than Barret had ever been, relying as he did on his size to compensate where he lacked polish. </p>
<p>There was also the matter of Barret’s new right arm - a convertible prosthetic brought to him by the WRO engineering team the week before, and which was still blowing his mind every time he glanced down to see something nearly human where he’d carried a gun for so long. He still wasn’t using it - not as a hand, at least - for fear of mishandling something fragile, of causing harm where he lacked sensation in the limb. </p>
<p>With Barret’s disability being one more subject he and Reeve had been skating around, it added an easy extra layer to his refusal to teach Reeve any grappling personally. One that didn’t require him to voice his misgivings about getting close and sweaty on the practice mats. As much as they were working up to something that Barret was pretty sure he was all for, he found he wasn’t quite ready to go... there... yet. </p>
<p>Besides which, they almost certainly wouldn’t have gotten any actual training done after hitting the mats. </p>
<p>Reeve for his part was, as ever, a good sport about the whole thing as Tifa tossed him around the gym. </p>
<p>“Go easy on my boyfriend!” Barret shouted from the sidelines a half hour into the process, as Tifa dropped the man in question to the ground with a particularly solid <i>thump</i>, and Reeve, who had already been flushed and panting, made an additional small strangled noise. </p>
<p>Marlene, seated in Barret’s lap with her arms firmly wrapped around Choco the Chocobo, let out a giggle that left no ambiguity regarding whether she thought her father was the funniest man on the planet. </p>
<p>The attention of the rest of the room on the other hand - the population of the 7th Heaven crammed into Tifa’s training room to watch her put the WRO Commissioner through his paces - made him hesitate in a way that he hadn’t when the whole thing had been a running joke and not his dearest friends getting over-invested in his personal life. It occurred to him all at once that it might be the first time he’d put a name to his relationship with the man outside the privacy of his own head. </p>
<p>As Tifa was helping Reeve off the mats for another round of maneuvers, Barret intentionally turned his full attention to his daughter, patting her chocobo as if it was the real thing while she beamed with delight. </p>
<p>“Hey, Marlene. Do you know what kind of chocobo can climb higher than a mountain?” he waited until her wide and curious eyes were fixed on him before continuing, “All of them. Mountains can’t climb.” </p>
<p>“That was awful,” Cloud told him while Marlene howled her approval. </p>
<p>“Yeah, awful,” Denzel echoed loyally, tucked under the former SOLDIER’s arm on one of his increasingly rare ventures from his bedroom. He glanced up at Cloud before carefully schooling his features into a matching expression of stoicism. </p>
<p>Beside the pair of them, Nanaki rumbled in what might have been amusement or might have been agreement with Cloud. It was hard to tell, as he was still trying to dislodge peanut butter from the roof of his mouth. </p>
<p>At least, Barret figured, none of them were focused on his personal life any more. </p>
<p>---</p>
<p>It was much later when Barret wandered upstairs for the night, his days of closing the bar happily behind him but still with a few rounds under his belt by the time their assembled group had finished toasting AVALANCHE, the new 7th Heaven, the WRO, and the half dozen rebuilding projects still underway around Edge. </p>
<p>Tifa had insisted on a round to celebrate that he and Reeve had finally gotten together (although he wasn’t sure what he thought about the ‘finally’), leading their only public kiss since the first one so many weeks before, and rising a cheer from the assembled members of AVALANCHE along with the bar’s slightly inebriated patrons in a way that felt better than Barret had expected it to. </p>
<p>The lingering warmth of the drinks as well as the kiss stayed with him as he shut the bedroom door behind him in the quiet, private back half of the building. Stayed with him as he prepared efficiently for sleep before hitting the lights and dropping onto the half-familiar mattress of what was technically his bedroom, when he was around long enough to use it. </p>
<p>He felt guilty about the last part, some days. </p>
<p>A lot of days, really... but the current day, full of friends and family and good feelings, wasn’t one of them. </p>
<p>And Reeve, of course. He was family now, too. But also -</p>
<p><i>Boyfriend.</i> </p>
<p>- also more than family, a thought that settled pleasantly in Barret’s stomach, like the kiss downstairs and the lazy hours of Reeve dozing against his shoulder in a rare moment not focused on work. </p>
<p>Those things had felt good. Felt <i>right</i>. Right, and a bit of something else when he thought about the warmth of the contact between them, and remembered Reeve flushed and panting in the gym as he tried to keep up with Tifa’s lessons. </p>
<p>Barret didn’t jerk off often. He’d been right handed, once, and the awkward, alien touch of his left hand, even years later, still had the power to hit him with a very real and immediate sense of everything he’d lost with his life in Corel.</p>
<p>But the mood had struck (guiltily, because while it was technically his home, his room, he still felt not quite ready to live there yet, but struck nevertheless) and he found his mind venturing fuzzily into speculation over what it would be like to do more than just kiss Reeve. </p>
<p>Sex would be intense, he was sure, if the man brought the attention to detail to the bedroom that he brought to every other part of his life. Being the <i>focus</i> of that sharp attention while being brought undone...</p>
<p>Barret shuddered and palmed himself through the light material of his sleep pants, biting his lip to be as silent as possible. </p>
<p>Reeve himself was only a few rooms away. He had excused himself early from the evening’s festivities in deference to an early morning meeting scheduled with the Edge government before returning to Junon, but Barret found it took no effort to recall to mind the solid warmth of him, the subtle scent of his cologne and the bright sharp taste on his lips of the mints he kept with him everywhere. </p>
<p>It occurred to Barret briefly to wonder if it was alright to think about a partner in the context of jerking off, if they’d never…</p>
<p>He didn’t finish the thought, though. Decided the question was too much to deal while he had a hard-on - and he really didn’t feel up to asking that kind of question when the movement of his hand over himself felt <i>good</i> - just good, for once, without any of the underlying ache of the things he’d lost. </p>
<p>Instead turned his curiosity back to what sex would be like with Reeve - to have the man’s body naked and wanting beneath him, breath fast as their hands explored all the sensitive secret places that came along with it. In bed, or on the couch... or maybe in Reeve’s office, that safe space they had been occupying so many evenings after business hours, the space that put a barrier of professionalism between them and the possibility of too much, too soon. </p>
<p>His imagination, he found, had no qualms about ignoring the barrier of propriety to bend Reeve over the arm of the sofa, touch him everywhere that he was spread open for Barret’s questing fingers and then to enter him like that - to pull Reeve back onto his cock until Barret was buried balls deep in the heat of him. </p>
<p>Barret worked to suppress a sound as he pushed down the top of the pants to let his cock spring free, fully hard and wanting when he wrapped his hand around it to begin stroking in earnest. </p>
<p>He wanted badly to know what Reeve would sound like when he was getting fucked. If he would be silent and controlled or if he would be wild and writhing when he came apart. </p>
<p>He’d been thinking a lot, in recent days, about the ways he might make Reeve come. Imagined having Reeve in his hand and stroking him until he came undone. Wanting to take Reeve in his mouth and make him lose his perfect composure - Barret was pretty sure he could do that, and damn sure he wanted to try. </p>
<p>Of course, Reeve was a man, it was always possible that he would want to -</p>
<p>Barret’s hand stilled on himself and he found himself swallowing hard. </p>
<p><i>Of course</i> Reeve was a man. </p>
<p>It was foolish to think that he’d be casually submissive to whatever Barret had in mind. </p>
<p>If Reeve... wanted to be on top. Could he do that? </p>
<p>If it was Barret bent over the edge of the sofa, or maybe across Reeve’s desk...</p>
<p>He squeezed his cock solidly and <i>did</i> let out a small groan at that. Yes, definitely across the desk. </p>
<p>What would it be like, to be encouraged to lean forward by masculine strength, to let that intimate space be opened for another man’s desires?</p>
<p>It would feel good, Barret was sure - it must, or else no one would do it. But it was terra incognita for him. He’d tried, from time to time, to touch himself that way, and it didn’t feel bad. Felt okay, in fact, and very sensitive - but it didn’t feel like sex, exactly, and he wasn’t equipped to combine it with jerking off to see if that improved matters. </p>
<p>But if Reeve was doing it to him...</p>
<p>He groaned again, muffled by throwing his right arm over his face as he began stroking himself more quickly. Saw in his mind Reeve pushing him forward onto the desk and telling him to stay there. Pinning him down with a sex-deepened rumble of authority. Reached forward to undo his belts and pull his pants open and down his legs before wrapping his erection in a strong, hot hand to stroke him just as Barret was doing to himself in the dark bedroom. </p>
<p>Reeve pressing him open, first with exploratory fingers and then with the thick tip of his cock, narrating as he did in his tight, controlled tones all the things we was going to do for as long as Barret was spread open there over the desk and -</p>
<p>Barret came hard into the last few desperate strokes of his own hand, pressing a shout he couldn’t control into the crook of his elbow as his hips jumped from the bed, hot arousal giving way all at once to a shuddering rush of orgasm. Came so quickly and so hard he felt the streams of wet heat splashing up his chest nearly to the arm covering his face as he stroked himself stutteringly though to the last of it then dropped bonelessly back to the bed in a haze of aftershocks. </p>
<p>So. </p>
<p>He definitely wanted to do <i>all</i> the things with Reeve, then.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So sorry about the long wait on this chapter, I will try to do better over the next couple of weeks! </p><p>Also heads up y'all, this chapter is basically just smut. Anyone skipping those parts, uhh, please give this chapter a pass.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Reeve found himself increasingly distracted when he knew he was going to see Barret. It wasn’t professional, and it sure as hell didn’t match his strained efforts at composure, but the happy rush he felt when Barret entered a room didn’t give a damn about any of that.</p><p>His staff, fortunately, seemed still to be under the impression that they were keeping things professional (at least, <i>mostly</i> professional) in the WRO offices. Or as professional as he and Barret ever had been before their relationship had moved beyond the realm of friendship. </p><p>Of course his staff also seemed to be of the impression that they were resolving their tension in places that weren’t the office - not least on the nights that Barret waited late while Reeve was finalizing documents and they walked out together. No one seemed to have reached the conclusion that, once they were out the door, they proceeded to separate homes.</p><p>Over a month since they had started seeing each other and Barret had still not returned to the penthouse, nor shown any sign of inviting Reeve back to wherever he disappeared to after leaving HQ for the evening. </p><p>Reeve was losing his damned mind. </p><p>He recognized that they were arriving from different histories - Reeve himself most comfortable with the kind of one-night affair that didn’t involve breakfast and didn’t distract him from his work; Barret, as near as Reeve could ascertain, having married the highschool sweetheart who represented the only other entry in his romantic history. </p><p>It was an intimidating benchmark against which to be measured. It also shed light on the other man’s refusal to simply fall into bed... Barret’s insistence that they take their time and “do it right”. His desire to hold hands, to silently occupy one another’s space, to sneak in the kind of quick kisses that spoke to affection rather than sex and left Reeve feeling out of his depth in a way that he couldn’t quite pin down.</p><p>The entire thing was leaving Reeve not only unbalanced but as frustrated as he had ever been as a teenager - trying to move things incrementally forward only for Barret to slow him down, remind him that it was only the beginning for such a short time. </p><p>The worst part, Reeve thought, was how Barret’s idea of <i>doing it right</i> was probably onto something, if his excitement at just a rare opportunity to get his partner’s shirt off was any indication. </p><p>A level of excitement that had him achingly hard, straddling Barret’s lap on the office couch - business hours long past and door firmly locked with Cait Sith keeping sullen watch out front. </p><p>They had made it to the couch not long after end of business and then no further, kissing until Reeve was light headed from the contact, lips sensitive from kisses and the drag of Barret’s beard. The heat of Barret’s touch on him was barely muted where he was down to a thin undershirt, moving across his chest, down his side, gripping firmly at his hip. </p><p>And he wouldn’t have changed it for anything. Except...</p><p>He <i>knew</i> how hard Barret was too. Could feel him straining against his pants where they were pressed together - unacknowledged at risk of breaking the moment. The hand at his hip stayed firmly in place, not daring to go further in defiance of its clear welcome. </p><p>Reeve had asked, weeks ago, if it was actually a gay thing - if Barret had changed his mind about men after the reality sank in - and Barret had answered that it wasn’t. Most times Reeve believed him (especially in the kind of moment when the evidence of the man’s arousal was so obvious that he must have been half-mad from it) but the force of Barret’s self control in some things was breathtaking - and Reeve suspected he had a few more nights of blue balls to look forward to before whatever unspoken reticence held the other man at bay would finally pass. </p><p>Which wasn’t to say that he couldn’t offer incentives to expedite the process. </p><p>“Let me blow you?” he breathed into Barret’s ear at the same time that he began to sneak his hands under the hem of the man’s shirt to the enticing field of bare skin beneath. </p><p>The hand on Reeve’s hip flexed sharply, just below the threshold of pain as Barret answered him with a noise that started somewhere deep in his chest, and encouraged Reeve to shift until their erections were pressed against one another through the intervening layers of clothing. </p><p>Cutting off a small noise of his own Reeve leaned back far enough that their gazes could meet properly in the twilight, took in the intensity of Barret’s expression, his lips wet and swollen and eyes gone so dark as to be almost black in the evening shadows. </p><p>“That a yes?” Reeve asked with a small thrill - certainly, the response was more encouraging than the gentle deflections he had grown accustomed to. </p><p>“I...” Barret started to answer, paused, opened his mouth to speak again. </p><p>A phone rang. </p><p>Reeve sighed and pulled further back again to fix the other man with a questioning expression.</p><p>“It’s set for only emergencies to come through,” Barret answered him after a half moment, reaching to grab the phone from his pocket a few critical inches from where Reeve had been <i>hoping</i> he was going to grab before the end of the night. After a few gulping breaths to gather his composure he answered the phone with impressive professionalism. </p><p>The call was from Marlene, Reeve extrapolated from the sudden change in Barret’s tone after the first greeting, and as the conversation progressed (Reeve moving regretfully to a respectful distance, wincing at the tightness in his pants that hadn’t yet realized the evening’s festivities were over) it became clear that to a six year old it <i>was</i> an emergency that Denzel had broken her moogle toy. Even by mistake. Even if Barret would fix it as soon as he could. </p><p>“Everything okay?” Reeve mouthed at Barret as he tried to calm his daughter, and the man answered with a wave and the kind of apologetic nod that made Reeve fully give up hope that they would pick up where they left off when the call was over. </p><p>He turned to the picture windows that looked out over the bay and let himself sigh as he tried to tug his slacks into a more comfortable fit. </p><p>If anything, the frustration was getting worse with the WRO security overhaul completed. Barret had finally accepted a formal role with the Alternative Energy Department, and while there were fewer meetings with the security team in Reeve’s schedule, the knowledge that Barret was always in the building, always close, was driving him to distraction in a way it wouldn’t have before Reeve had learned by heart how the man smelled and tasted and felt under his hands, just a few short floors away at any given time. </p><p>And while he may have accepted (with reluctance) the way that the breaks got put on any time things became too heated, the frequency of the interruptions had led Reeve to stop making any secret of the fact that he’d been excusing himself to bring things to their logical conclusion when their more heated moments were called to a halt. </p><p>When the conversation behind him reached a strained protest of “No, you don’t have to put Cloud on the phone!” Reeve took it as a cue that he had fallen on exactly such an occasion and slid toward the office’s small bathroom to <i>take care of things.</i> </p><p>He’d barely closed the door behind himself and gotten his fly down to release the pressure on his stubborn erection when there was a soft knock on the door, unexpected and making him jump guiltily. </p><p>“Sorry about the call. Is everything okay?” </p><p>They probably needed to have a talk about boundaries involving bathroom doors, Reeve noted with amused horror, but then, he had made no secret of the reason he’d been sneaking off in such instances. </p><p>He opted for honesty. Palmed himself through his underwear, sucked a breath through his teeth, “Just taking matters in hand.” </p><p>It was far from the first time he’d done it, and at the rate they were moving it probably wouldn’t be the last. It <i>was</i> the first time that Barret had come so near to following him, though, and a brief impulse toward modesty made him hesitant. </p><p>“You could... join me?” he glanced around the office’s well appointed but admittedly cramped bathroom and his eyes fell on the shower stall tucked away in the corner. It had never been designed to accommodate two grown men - and certainly not when one of them was as broad as Barret - but Reeve had never been accused of lacking ingenuity, “Maybe for a shower?” </p><p>He heard something (a hand?) come to rest against the other side of the door, followed by a heavy breath. </p><p>When Barret said nothing more Reeve added, “The door’s unlocked.” </p><p>He was answered by a choking noise that he didn’t know how to interpret before Barret answered, “Think I’d better stay out here, thanks.” </p><p>But he didn’t move away as Reeve had expected, the sound of him, the presence of him hovering just a scant few inches of wood away. </p><p>Reeve swallowed hard, and found that he didn’t mind nearly as much as he might have. </p><p>“Well, if you change your mind, I’m-” he pulled himself free of underwear and wrapped a hand around his cock, letting himself make a louder sound of satisfaction than he might have without an audience, “I’m right here.” </p><p>“God,” he heard Barret groan on the other side of the door, and a thump that might have been a fist or might have been his head against the barrier, then nothing. </p><p>Reeve found himself struck all at once by the absurdity of the situation, even as he squeezed himself and let out a loud hiss for the benefit of the man just outside the closed door. If someone had told him - before Barret Wallace began to occupy his every thought and fantasy, that was - that he’d be jerking off in his office bathroom with his boyfriend sitting stubbornly a few short feet away and listening to him do it, he’d have hardly believed it. </p><p>He had been learning all sorts of things about himself the past weeks. And about Barret. Like the fact that Barret was most decidedly <i>not</i> going anywhere, if the sound of someone sliding down to sit against the door was anything to go on. </p><p>“Can’t promise I’m gonna be quiet,” Reeve warned him, then smirked and added impulsively, “I might even be pretty loud.” </p><p>“<i>Please,</i>” Barret answered through the door, with an edge of something ragged in his voice, and Reeve might have been more sympathetic if he’d been feeling a little less frustrated, but he was left with the company of his own hand, and he was determined to use it for all he was worth. </p><p>“Tell me what you want, Barret,” he aimed the instruction toward the door, letting his voice drop low even as he let his hips rock forward into the long slow movements of his own hand. </p><p>“... Talk to me,” Barret’s voice came across in a low rumble, hesitant but demanding all the same, “Tell me-” </p><p>He didn’t finish the thought but he didn’t need to - Reeve had played the game before, or near enough to it, to fill in the blanks. He continued to stroke himself, letting the leaking head of his cock drag over his palm on the downstroke and releasing a louder moan than he would have without an audience, his attention still fixed on the door. </p><p>“Touching myself right now. You felt how hard I was before. I know I felt you,” there was a small noise from Barret that might have been an agreement, “My hand feels so good. Think yours would feel better.” </p><p>Reeve paused, stilling his own movements while waiting for an answer but heard only small noises and careful silence from the other side of the door. </p><p>“I think I might have some lube in here,” he continued when he received no response, taking the moment to catch a few deep calming breaths. He knew perfectly well he had a bottle of lube in the second drawer by the sink. There was no <i>might</i> about it, “Think I should get it?” </p><p>Barret groaned outside the door and Reeve let himself smile even as he teased himself in the pause that followed. He had no idea how it had happened, the situation had definitely deteriorated into the strangest version of phone sex he’d ever taken part in, but he was damned it if wasn’t working for him anyway. </p><p>“... Yeah,” Barret finally answered, voice noticeably strained. </p><p>That was... good. Reeve pulled open the drawer and grabbed the bottle, “What should I do with it?” </p><p>“Damn, Cat, don’t make me say it.” </p><p>The nickname in the intimate context made him throb and he grinned. </p><p>“Better say it or I’m putting everything away,” he was bluffing so badly that it wasn’t even funny. Lying like a cheap rug.</p><p>But it was working - a deep, shaky sigh sounded directly outside. Reeve was sure that the other man must have had his face pressed right to the wood for the sound to travel like that - it was not a flimsy door. He found it easy enough to imagine Barret sitting opposite him, barely a few feet between them, turned on and <i>maybe</i> trying to fight it, <i>definitely</i> trying to hear everything Reeve was doing...</p><p>“Slick your hand,” Barret finally told him. </p><p>Was there a wobble in Barret’s voice? Reeve decided it was wishful thinking on his own part - but what a wish. </p><p>He poured a dollop of lube into his palm, neglected for a moment his achingly hard erection, “Now what?” </p><p>“You know what.” </p><p>“Pretend I don’t.” </p><p>“Touch yourself with it.” </p><p>“Okay,” Reeve closed the last small space to the door and let himself drop to his knees to where he thought Barret must be leaning, “Touch where?” </p><p>There was a startled intake of breath across from him, and Reeve smiled to hear it. </p><p>“You want it on my cock? On my ass?” </p><p>“Yes,” the answer arrived emphatic, a little frantic. </p><p>“Which one?” </p><p>“<i>All of it,</i>” Barret’s answer was followed with a low moan that Reeve might have missed from a greater distance. He wasn’t at a greater distance. </p><p>“Good choice,” Reeve praised, spreading the lube between his hands. </p><p>He wrapped one around his frustrated cock, wet and a little chilled, and let himself groan against the door as he did, heard a small shuffle on the other side. </p><p>When the noises opposite him turned back to a waiting silence, he began fisting his cock, thrusting into the wet circle of his curled fingers and creating a wet slap of accompaniment. </p><p>“So good,” he was sure he wouldn’t last very long, not after being so worked up before he even started. Not with Barret right there, groaning brokenly across the thin barrier between them, “Can you hear that, Barret?” </p><p>“I hear you,” Barret confirmed, voice rumbling so low Reeve could hardly make out what he was saying. </p><p>“Feels good,” Reeve panted as he stroked himself, “Got my hand tight and wet. Can’t wait until it’s you touching me.” </p><p>“<i>Reeve.</i>” </p><p>Reeve slid the other hand behind himself, found the entrance to his body, teasing his wet fingers over it and groaning his appreciation. </p><p>“Got my fingers over my ass now. Feels so sensitive. Should I put them inside? You know I’ll be thinking about you.” </p><p>“Reeve. Yes.” </p><p>Barret made a broken noise outside the door, and Reeve did as he asked. </p><p>The angle was all wrong, kneeling with his pants still barely pushed low enough for access and his shoulder pressed to the door, couldn’t get the depth he wanted but it didn’t matter, he was too far gone. </p><p>“Barret, I’m so close. Are you ready for it?”</p><p>There were more noises outside the door, then Reeve was caught off guard when Barret asked him, “There’s a mirror, right?” </p><p>It took him a moment to understand the question, confusion trying to creep into his sex-clouded mind even when he did, “Yes, why?” </p><p>“<i>Watch yourself,</i>” Barret’s voice outside the door was halfway to a plea, rasping and sounding nearly as close as Reeve was himself. Was he also...?</p><p>Reeve turned, could barely see himself in the mirror from the angle he was at - just his face, flushed and beading with sweat as he approached climax. Eyes dark and telling of the heat that pooled low in his belly as he stroked himself off. </p><p>He forced himself to get to his feet, let his shoulders press back against the door as he arched, pants slipping lower on his hips and giving him the leverage he needed to sink fingers more deeply inside himself, satisfying and frustrating at once as he couldn’t quite find the spot that could tip him over the final edge. </p><p>“Do you see?” he heard Barret asking outside the door.</p><p>He did, but only for a moment before his eyes dropped closed and he began to lose himself, hand jerking rough and erratic over his erection and just beginning to be a little dry as the lube ran low. </p><p>The extra drag over the head of his cock was enough to spill him over the edge, shouting and arching as he did, coming as hard as he ever had by himself until his release was tracking across his chest, coating his hand and his cock as he stroked himself through it. </p><p>He gave a final groan and let himself slide down the door at his back, sitting hard on the cool tiles. </p><p>As his mind cleared he became increasingly aware of a litany from the other side of the door, any kind of hesitance on Barret’s part clearly dissipated as he rambled, “<i>so good, kitten, that’s how you do it, come for me so nice, just like that, Reeve, wanna hear you wanna hear everything, you did so good...</i>” </p><p>It was... oddly sweet. Made him wish that Barret was on the same side of the door in a way totally different from the desires of his rapidly dissipating arousal. </p><p>He tugged a few times at his softening cock with a little hiss, pulling a satisfying final drop of ejaculate from the tip and spreading it with his thumb. </p><p>“I’m going to need a shower,” he announced, interrupting the stream of words from behind him and turning his gaze over his shoulder as if it made any difference whether he was <i>looking</i> at the door. </p><p>“I...” Barret hesitated, “... me too.”</p><p>Well, that was good to know. Reeve smirked, “Join me?” </p><p>When the silence stretched he wondered if he had finally pushed too hard, pushed too far, still wasn’t sure when Barret’s answer finally came, rattled and fuzzy-edged. Not at all like Reeve was used to hearing him.</p><p>“... Next time, I think.” </p><p>Not the answer he wanted, but not a full refusal, either. Reeve thought he might have felt worse if he wasn’t already feeling too relaxed and well fucked (even if just by himself in the end) to feel <i>too</i> bad. </p><p>He stripped and climbed into the tiny shower stall in the corner of the bathroom, already curious when <i>next time</i> was going to be. </p><p>When he was finished showering and climbing back into his rumpled slacks, he was able to let himself out into the office feeling halfway put-together again, if still shirtless. </p><p>Barret stared. </p><p>Then gave a small shake of his head and moved to take his own turn in the washroom. </p><p>Reeve couldn’t tell if he was already a mess or about to make one, but the man looked off balance in a way that he couldn’t remember seeing in all the weeks they’d spent getting close during stolen moments. </p><p>He didn’t press, except to grab Barret for a kiss as they passed - humming with contentment when Barret held his bare shoulder a little too tight, a little too long. </p><p>Back at his desk (and saved from the critical distraction of knowing that Barret was showering only a short distance away only by virtue of having already relieved that particular tension) he found an urgent email from the new girl, Shalua, regarding the identity of the shooter from the month before. </p><p>It seemed to be someone who went missing years previous out of the SOLDIER program and, according to the Turks, associated with a group called the Tsviets operating out of the former Midgar. Nothing had been turned up in the Turks investigation of the Shinra building the week before, of course, but Shinra had kept <i>so many</i> secrets...</p><p>Reeve sighed and rubbed his temples as reality invited itself crashing back into his evening-darkened office. </p><p>At least they finally had an idea who they were dealing with. It was better than the tabloids, which had been calling the summit attack an inside job by the WRO. </p><p>The tabloids were getting less funny.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks everyone for being patient with this slow update. Last major chapter here and it's a naughty one haha.. if you're trying to skip that I'd advise reading only the first section then skipping forward to the epilogue :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Barret had been amazed to learn that Reeve shined his own shoes. </p>
<p>First when he’d learned some weeks before, and all over again when he entered the Commissioner’s office the afternoon following their strange (excellent, intimate, <i>hot as hell</i>) encounter in the office the evening before. </p>
<p>“Don’t you have people for that?” Barret asked when Reeve looked up from his task, expression startled and hands still occupied with a rag and one shoe. </p>
<p>“Somewhere, probably. How are you?” </p>
<p>“Good. Real good,” Barret crossed the room to where Reeve was pushed back from his desk for the task, and bent for a quick kiss (charged, exciting, <i>daring</i> after how they’d left things the night before), “You?” </p>
<p>“Too busy,” Reeve’s pleased reaction became rueful as he answered, “... there’s shoepolish on your shirt.” </p>
<p>“Worth it,” Barret waved off the oncoming apology, “What are you doing tonight?” </p>
<p>Barret watched as the other man’s expression moved from thoughtful through speculative and finally to regret. </p>
<p>“Dio.” </p>
<p>“Right. Damn,” Barret swore in answer. The WRO was hosting the Gold Saucer’s peacock of an owner while they negotiated getting the Saucer fully onto alternative energy. It would be Barret’s turn to deal with Dio next - his schedule booked solid for it through the weekend - but the welcome dinner fell entirely on Reeve. </p>
<p>The new desk job chafed (and offered him insight into Reeve’s restlessness as he had fewer opportunities to escape into Cait Sith) - but it let him see all the dozens of small improvements that were happening day by day. Repairing the planet that Shinra had broken. The planet he had broken too, in his own misguided activism - and if he could best make amends from behind a desk, Barret was ready to deal with a hundred of Dio. </p>
<p>So, shoepolish. </p>
<p>“Why d’ya do it yourself?” Barret asked as he watched Reeve place the shoe back on the floor and fastidiously tuck polish, brush, and a light set of gloves away into a small kit. </p>
<p>The man’s motion paused for a brief moment, then continued smoothly, “It’s faster. And... my mother taught me when I was a boy. Was a hell of a mess in the hands of a seven year old. It reminds me of her.” </p>
<p>“You miss her a lot.” </p>
<p>“Some days,” Reeve answered carefully as he slid the tiny kit away into a drawer and toed his stocking foot back into his shoe, then sat back and fixed Barret with an appraising look, “I have my father’s full kit at home. It wasn’t valuable enough for the looters, after Midgar fell. Not to anyone but me, at least.” </p>
<p>The moment of sharing caught Barret almost as much off guard as the image of Reeve picking through the ruins of his home for some trace of his mother, another of the tens of thousands missing since Meteorfall. Reeve’s carefully guarded silence on personal matters was something that Barret had started to expect - a relic of his time in Shinra that had left Reeve keeping secrets as naturally as breathing - and the window of sharing wasn’t lost on him. </p>
<p>“Maybe you’ll show me sometime?” Barret kept the request carefully casual, and felt a surge of affection when Reeve’s cautiously neutral expression turned into a smile that creased at the corners of his eyes.</p>
<p>“Of course,” Reeve agreed, although with some of his usual reticence creeping back in. </p>
<p>Barret’s answer was interrupted when something butted against his leg, and he looked down to see Cait Sith waiting to be picked up. When he did, the cat curled and purred against his chest. Barret scratched his ears. </p>
<p>It was the distraction he needed from saying something entirely too direct about Reeve sharing - some expression of affection and caring that would shine the kind of spotlight to send the man clamming up all over again. </p>
<p>Or saying the kind of thing that he’d been on the edge of saying anyway since the previous night, when they were so close but not close enough - with the timing finally right and the location all wrong. Or again afterwards, when Reeve had emerged from the bathroom freshly showered but still flushed and dark eyed, and filling in some critical blanks in Barret’s imagination that had kept him distracted through the better part of the time since. </p>
<p>He cleared his throat and focused his attention on the purring animal in his arms. </p>
<p>“How about you, Cait? Staying out of trouble?” </p>
<p>“He is <i>not</i>,” Reeve stood and moved to take the animal out of Barret’s hold, “He knocked over all the plants on the third floor yesterday. Don’t reward him.”</p>
<p>“Lies!” Cait Sith protested, clinging tighter to Barret’s vest and purring louder, “It was the <i>fourth</i>.” </p>
<p>“Sorry Cait,” Barret peeling the animal's paws from his vest as he was pulled away then turned his attention to Reeve, “What about tomorrow night? Dinner?” </p>
<p>“Of course,” Reeve agreed, still trying to wrangle the squirming Cait Sith and doing little for the condition of his suit in the process. </p>
<p>“Your place? If the invitation is still open?” </p>
<p>“Yes!” Reeve’s face failed to hide his surprise, as did the way he nearly dropped the cat (the latter mumbling something disparaging in response), “Yes, of course. Eight o’clock? I’ll cook.” </p>
<p>“Great. See you then,” Barret interrupted him by reaching to scratch Cait Sith’s ears a final time, fought back against showing the pleased amusement he felt at Reeve’s dumbstruck expression, “Have fun with Dio, guys.” </p>
<p>Cait Sith squirming again in Reeve’s hold and seemed to drag the man back into the moment as he fought to keep his grip on the animal. </p>
<p>“I dinnae want to go!” Cait Sith reached after Barret, his habitual burr lightening almost to his creator’s neutral accent as he became distressed, “He let the kids at the Gold Saucer get cotton candy in my fur!” </p>
<p>---</p>
<p>“Barret.” </p>
<p>The outfit in which Reeve opened the door was uncommonly casual in Barret’s experience of the man - soft worn jeans that he hadn’t been aware the guy owned and a loose shirt with the first buttons undone to reveal the top of his chest. </p>
<p>He found himself responding with a rush of heat - from his appearance, but also from another of the privileged glimpses into a rare, casual corner of Reeve’s life. </p>
<p>“We’re not having supper,” Barret informed him, stepping in and letting the door close heavily behind him. </p>
<p>“Thank god. I can’t actually cook.” </p>
<p>Reeve didn’t resist when Barret pulled him forward for an insistent kiss, when he pulled the smaller man into his arms to appreciate the now-familiar shape of him, strong and solid as they pressed together. Felt the rasp of beard as Reeve moved to deepen the contact with a welcome slide of tongue against his lower lip. </p>
<p>“Bedroom,” Reeve instructed when they parted, breathing heavily and making clear that Barret wasn’t alone in the wanting from the short contact - then “Barret!” when Barret couldn’t resist picking him up, let his good hand form an appreciative curl over Reeve’s ass beneath the denim. </p>
<p>“Sorry, wasn’t ready to let go.”</p>
<p>“<i>Right</i>,” Reeve breathed against Barret’s neck where he had wrapped himself awkwardly - clearly unsettled and unused to being off the ground. </p>
<p>It was a little reassuring, Barret thought, that he wasn’t going to be the only one covering some new territory that night. </p>
<p>“Hold on tight,” he cautioned, the effort to carry his lover through the hall and into the bedroom small against the gratification of staying pressed tight together until they were both dropping down onto the wide bed. </p>
<p>“Welcome,” Reeve smiled when Barret had pulled back far enough they could look at each other again. </p>
<p>“Sorry it took me a while to get here,” he answered, contrite - but the brief moment of guilt flew from his mind as Reeve’s fingers brushed at the sensitive nape of his neck. </p>
<p>“It’s fine,” Reeve’s expression turned soft and teasing, “someone told me the beginning only lasts a little while, after all.” </p>
<p>Instead of answering Barret leaned forward to press their foreheads together, then their mouths, then to place a kiss against the bristles that covered Reeve’s chin and then to the bare skin just below the precise line of his beard. Listened to the tiny hitches and irregularities of Reeve’s breath, the feeling of his fingers curling against Barret’s shoulder as he kissed lower into the V of exposed skin at Reeve’s chest. </p>
<p>Barret moved his hand between them to begin work on Reeve’s shirt, revealing pale skin and dark hair a few inches at a time as the buttons gave way beneath his fingers, one stubborn closing finally giving way to fly across the room with a soft <i>plink</i> as he lost patience.</p>
<p>Reeve huffed a laugh but didn’t protest, just pulled his head nearer until he was again kissing across the man’s newly exposed skin, finally pulling the shirt all the way open and lingering with his mouth at Reeve’s navel just above where the trail of coarse hair began to grow more thickly and disappear below the waistline of his jeans. </p>
<p>“Barret,” Reeve’s voice was not much more than a fervent exhalation as the muscles of his abdomen twitched and his hips rolled upward to press an insistent hardness into the heel of Barret’s hand where it had come to rest over the button of Reeve’s pant, was struck by a rush of heat that made his own breath catch in turn as he recognized how close they were, how easy it would be to...</p>
<p>“Can I?” </p>
<p>“Absolutely.” </p>
<p>Barret tugged the fastenings open, sitting back enough to pull the garment down and off as Reeve shifted to help him before dropping back onto the bed, expectant and watchful as Barret took him in, filled in the empty spaces is his knowledge with expanses of bared skin - slim compared to Barret’s own broad build but still solidly muscled, telling of the same effort and care he put into all things. </p>
<p>His gaze found its inexorable way to the heavy erection curving up against Reeve’s stomach, lolling just below his navel and giving a small twitch as if in response to Barret’s curiosity. </p>
<p>“I want to touch you everywhere,” Barret confessed the impulse as soon as it occurred to him, “but first I want to…”</p>
<p>When he trailed off, sure of his intention but suddenly unsure of his words, Reeve filled in, “Whatever you want.” </p>
<p>Barret answered with a nod, relieved and eager, before dropping back over the man, curling the fingers of his good hand around his cock experimentally to feel the weight and insistent hardness of it, gratified when Reeve hissed sharply through his teeth in answer.</p>
<p>
  <i>Whatever you want. </i>
</p>
<p>He wanted... he dropped his head before he could question the idea and drew Reeve into his mouth, testing the weight and taste of him. Tried to remember what he liked, from the other side, to map out the sensitive places with swipes of his tongue.</p>
<p>Must have succeeded, as Reeve’s hands came to rest at the back of his head, <i>encouraging</i>... some tension there telling him that it was only by effort of will he didn’t <i>insist</i>. </p>
<p>Barret hummed and set to bobbing around Reeve’s cock, pleased when short fingernails scratched lightly at the back of his neck in time with small gasps that answered Barret’s movements, spurring him to go on. </p>
<p>It was messier than he remembered - or maybe he was just unpracticed - saliva and precome leaking from the corners of his mouth to slick Reeve’s skin, his own thumb where his hand pinned the other man’s hips in place as he moved. Was working for him though - and definitely working for Reeve based on the increasingly desperate noises that answered his movements. </p>
<p>“Barret. <i>Barret</i>, stop. I want -” Reeve finally interrupted him with a gentle pressure of his hands to pull back, and when he looked up Reeve was flushed and panting, watching him with an intensity that reminded him insistently that his own erection was still trapped uncomfortably in his pants. </p>
<p>“Get undressed,” Reeve told him when he had gathered himself enough to speak. </p>
<p>Not needing to be told a second time, Barret jumped to his feet, swiping the back of his hand over his wet lips as he did and noting the small noise that Reeve made in response. </p>
<p>When he’d unbuttoned his shirt and gotten caught at the cuffs, Reeve moved from his spot observing to help with the cufflinks. His brief questioning expression (Barret raised a brow at him - <i>of course</i> he’d worn them) skipped past the obvious questions and went directly to the inference, “You’re using the hand.” </p>
<p>“... Yeah. A little,” he had, with great pains, guided the new prosthetic through the process of fastening the cuff. Barret flexed the limb in question, metal fingers curling with his thoughts but with a disconcerting lack of feedback. </p>
<p>“Don’t suppose you’d want to...” Reeve’s speculative tone and rapt attention on the prosthetic made clear at least part of the thought left unfinished, made Barret swallow hard as an unexpected spark of embarrassment sent heat to his face. </p>
<p>“Not that comfortable with it yet,” he cleared his throat lightly as his brain tried to fill in some possible scenarios. </p>
<p>Reeve got to his feet, depositing the cufflinks onto the side table as he did. In the moment of Barret’s hesitation he pushed the shirt down his arms and let it fall to the floor, placed warm hands against his sides. </p>
<p>The touch shouldn’t have seemed so sexually charged, Barret thought, but paired with the open kisses that Reeve placed on his chest, wet heat and a counterpoint of the coarse drag of his beard, left him feeling adrift and intensely aware of how long it had been since he’d allowed himself to be so close to someone. Allowed anyone to get so close to <i>him</i>. </p>
<p>“Maybe next time,” Reeve suggested, undeterred, just before bending to close his mouth over Barret’s nipple. </p>
<p>Barret groaned his response as he felt Reeve’s tongue drawing a circle over him, felt a bolt of arousal that flew down to other, even hotter places. </p>
<p>“Couple more next times,” Barret bargained with an effort of concentration, and when Reeve hummed against him forgot what he was negotiating at all, wrapping his hand around the back of the man’s head to hold him in place, “Damn that feels good.” </p>
<p>Reeve hummed again, sounding something like an affirmation, before his hands moved to work at the fastenings of Barret’s pants. </p>
<p>When between them they’d managed to free him from the rest of his clothing and he’d kicked his pants away to a far corner of the room Barret wrapped his good arm around Reeve to drag him closer, hold him in a tight press of their bodies. </p>
<p>“Barret…”</p>
<p>“Is this okay?” </p>
<p>“This is fine,” and Reeve’s tone, muffled in the warm press of his face against Barret’s neck, matched his words, “in fact this is <i>great</i>, just…”</p>
<p>“Just?”</p>
<p>“Come on,” Reeve matched the words by stepping back, an arm curling around the small of Barret’s back and encouraging him to follow until they were sliding back onto the mattress. </p>
<p>Back on the bed Barret let Reeve pull him in for small kisses, felt the gentle, exploring touches that ran over his chest, the thumb that brushed over his nipple with another small shock of surprise and the fingers that traced along his side and made him shiver. </p>
<p>When Reeve finally wrapped a hand around him, having another person’s touch on him after so long left him shuddering and he let out a rumbling groan that he hadn’t known was coming and hadn’t planned to make. </p>
<p>Barret covered Reeve’s hand with his own to hold back the practiced strokes that threatened to take him apart, curling until he could press his face into Reeve’s neck and breathe him in, familiar cologne and under it his own scent at once familiar and erotic. </p>
<p>After a final steadying breath he tried to find words and could only mumble, “’s been so long, I’m not sure I remember how to <i>be</i> anymore.”</p>
<p>“Then just be however you feel, Barret. I’ve got you. I lo-” Reeve hesitated with something looming in his sudden tense stillness, cleared his throat, “well, maybe that last part is better for a pants-on conversation.”</p>
<p>Barret’s heart twisted sharply over the truncated confession, and he pushed away the swell of emotion to move until he could kiss the man, trying to feel the words not said, trying to convey some of his own. </p>
<p>“I think I want to have that pants-on conversation too,” he said when they broke apart, the hammering of it behind his ribcage competing with the urgent knowledge that Reeve’s hand was still wrapped around him, warm and strong. </p>
<p>“Not right now, I hope?” Reeve protested, and as he did his fingers twitched, making Barret groan out a noise that started somewhere deep in his chest. </p>
<p>“No damn way,” he agreed, and followed with a bark of a laugh that surprised even him, “But y’know. Maybe later tonight. Or tomorrow morning.” </p>
<p>“Good,” Reeve punctuated the agreement with another, softer kiss before releasing him and encouraging him to roll onto his back, straddling him in a way that Barret thought might be a clue about how the night was going to play out. </p>
<p>But when Reeve reached to pull a bottle of lube from the side table (pressing them full length again as he did, derailing any kind of predictions Barret had been in the process of making) he slicked his hand only to wrap it around both of them, tight and cool compared against the heat of Reeve’s erection pressed so intimately against his own. </p>
<p>“Reeve,” he started, and didn’t know how to finish as he let his head drop back into the pillows, felt his world narrow to the tunnel of Reeve’s hand around them. </p>
<p>“Barret,” the man answered with an edge of something a little like amusement and a little like authority, and entirely more control over the situation than Barret himself was feeling. </p>
<p>Anything else that might have followed - the small noises and gasps as Reeve worked them both together; Reeve grabbing Barret’s good hand to join the one already wrapped around them, letting him set the pressure, set the pace; the creaking protest of the headboard as Barret wrapped his new, metal hand around it looking for some kind of grounding before being totally overwhelmed - fell away as the world narrowed to where they were pressed together in combined purpose. </p>
<p>Reeve finished first with a groan and a spill of wet heat over Barret’s stomach, over the slick glide of their hands even as his motions became erratic, hand steadied by Barret’s around his own and guiding him through even as his hips bucked hard into their joined hands. </p>
<p>Pushed Barret to the peak that had already been fast approaching and had him following forcefully over the edge, arching off the bed in spasms of euphoria that nearly toppled Reeve along with him, had the man dropping onto his chest as they came down, letting out a pleased chuckle as he did. </p>
<p>Barret answered by wrapping an arm over Reeve’s shoulder to hold him tightly as his breathing settled into something more normal.</p>
<p>“Damn good time, Cat,” Barret found himself pressing a kiss into Reeve’s hair then wondering if the other man would find it odd. Decided it was probably fine either way. </p>
<p>“I aim to please,” Reeve’s deep laugh vibrated where they were pressed together so that Barret felt it as much as heard it, then stretched languidly over Barret before sitting up enough to reach for a box of tissues at the bedside. </p>
<p>“Wasn’t quite what I figured you had in mind, after so long,” Barret made the admission easily, still mellow from orgasm, but felt the hitch in Reeve’s motions, and the pause before he answered. </p>
<p>“... Didn’t think you wanted to do everything right away. It only being the beginning for such a short time and all.”</p>
<p>“Smartass,” Barret grinned back at him, but still felt relieved as he accepted the handful of tissues handed to him.</p>
<p>Reeve rolled onto his back with a noise of contentment when he had finished cleaning himself off. After doing the same, Barret followed to let his head drop onto Reeve’s chest and cause him to let out a sharp exhalation. He murmured a reassurance when Barret apologized, and tossed an arm over his shoulder. </p>
<p>It felt good, felt <i>easy</i>, in exactly the way that Barret had been afraid that it wouldn’t, and he soon found himself drifting - mellow from orgasm and with the steady thrum of Reeve’s heartbeat beneath his ear. After a while, he began to suspect that Reeve had fallen asleep there, motionless except for the occasional tightening of his fingers around Barret’s bicep and his breathing slow and even. </p>
<p>The quiet intimacy of the moment, even more than the sex, seemed to highlight some critical line that had been crossed between them - although when he looked closer at the idea he wondered if the line hadn’t been crossed a few nights before in Reeve’s office... or if maybe the line had been crossed weeks ago while neither of them had fully noticed. </p>
<p>Months before, when Barret had first agreed to work with the WRO, Reeve had been there to provide a grounding point - first professionally and then as a friend. And then as more than that, as odd and fraught as it had felt to him at first. And Barret had to admit that he had little enough to compare it to. He had loved Myrna fiercely and wholly, and the hollowed out feeling left in her wake had threatened to take him too - but their marriage had never been touched by the history and the complexities that existed between him and Reeve. Had made it hard, at first, to understand that ‘simple’ had never been a prerequisite for being happy and whole with the man beside him. </p>
<p>Or for that <i>other</i> sentiment, not quite articulated but promised and imminent. </p>
<p>“I can <i>hear</i> you thinking,” Reeve groaned, his fingers making a final firm curl over Barret’s shoulder before the arm flopped away onto the bed. </p>
<p>“Yeah,” Barret admitted, feeling less caught-out than he expected but sitting up anyway. </p>
<p>“Good things, I hope?” </p>
<p>“The best,” Barret stood and stretched, felt as he did some new easiness sliding into place that he hadn’t fully noticed himself missing until it was set right, “Think I need a shower though. Comin’ with?” </p>
<p>Reeve did.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Just a quick epilogue before moving on to side stories and missing scenes. Thanks so much to everyone who's stuck around from the beginning, and to anyone just finding this now. You guys all rock and I'm very grateful for the lovely response to this fun, silly sidetrack of a fic &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“You’re on in twenty minutes, sir,” a WRO security agent conveyed to Reeve, fresh from a whispered conversation with the television station’s nervous floor manager, “They wanted to start with the Alternative Energy Director, but-”</p>
<p>He trailed off, and Reeve sighed, suppressed the urge to rub at the bridge of his nose only for fear of being sent to a second round with the station’s makeup crew. </p>
<p>For his part Barret had the good grace to look chastened, having spent the better part of the time since emerging from makeup growling at the station staff. He mumbled an apology to the officer - a young man Reeve half remembered from the taskforce responsible for the WRO’s security overhaul. </p>
<p>“We’ll go together,” Reeve sighed, and the look of nervous gratitude the floor manager shot him before fleeing made clear that dealing directly with the head of the WRO made him only slightly less nervous than dealing with Barret when he had his hackles up. </p>
<p>“What’s actually going on?” Reeve asked when the news station’s employee was out of earshot and they were left with only the small contingent of WRO security.</p>
<p>“Not ready for this.” </p>
<p>Barret had begun tugging at his tie and barely yielded when Reeve swatted his hand away to coax it back into a fussy double windsor. Even so Reeve felt his own rising irritation with Barret’s temper melting away when the man moved subtly toward the glide of fingers at his neck, saw that the bluster that was striking fear into the production crew was covering a case of nerves. Without the audience Reeve might have lingered longer, lingered closer before withdrawing his touch. But they did have an audience - and in a few more minutes would have an international one. </p>
<p>Reeve wasn’t as ready as he wanted to be either - should have spent longer the night before running through the prepared answers for what the production team had sent ahead. For his own part he was comfortable enough from years as a public figure to improvise - and it was hard to regret what he and Barret had spent the night doing <i>instead</i> of preparing their talking points - but he felt all at once apprehensive that Barret may have been less comfortable without something well rehearsed. </p>
<p>“They aren’t going to throw you any of the hard balls,” Reeve withdrew his hands with some remorse from where they were still fidgeting at Barret’s tie, “they’re saving all of those for me, I’m afraid.” </p>
<p>“People are gonna say I only got the promotion because I’m your boy toy,” Barret protested, and looked like he wanted to to follow Reeve’s touch as it was withdrawn. </p>
<p>One of the security officers snorted a laugh and Reeve glared at the woman.</p>
<p>“I assure you, Director Wallace, <i>no one</i> is going to believe that you are <i>anybody’s</i> ‘boy toy’,” Reeve glanced at the wall clock, edging inexorably toward air time and the beginning of the interview, “You were appointed by the Board of Directors after I recused myself from the vote. Only the tabloids are printing anything about it at all.”</p>
<p>Barret sighed at the mention of the media, and Reeve found himself agreeing - he expected his own section of the interview to be spent less on the attacks in Midgar and recent cure for Geostigma and more addressing accusations that the WRO was acting as a vassal organization for an expansionist Wutaiian regime (more of Palmer’s doing, no doubt). </p>
<p>“Stay on your talking points. The Condor Wind Farms and the new oil discov-” he paused when Barret waved him off, and realized that the nerves had never been about the interview - not after the high stakes of his position heading AVALANCHE. There was something else leaving him off balance, “What?” </p>
<p>Barret sent a meaningful look toward the security team, who shuffled under his attention and tried very hard to make themselves invisible without actually leaving the room. </p>
<p>It was probably the closest to privacy they were going to get under the circumstances. </p>
<p>Barret sighed, “Doesn’t feel the same as Corel or AVALANCHE. Just thought, when I settled down, it would be in Edge.” </p>
<p>“Oh.” </p>
<p>Reeve glanced again at the clock and saw with dismay that they had less than fifteen minutes until the interview started. Tried and failed to overrule the sick feeling in his stomach that made the world feel like it would spin out from under him. </p>
<p>“Doesn’t seem right, y’know,” Barret continued, “uprootin’ Marlene like that, when Tifa’s been there for her just as much as I have. More, lately... Guess the Director position didn’t seem real until we had to come announce it on TV.” </p>
<p>“... I see,” Reeve cleared his throat, the question they had been skating around for weeks - <i>what next?</i> - huge and heavy after finally being given form. He tried to think of some way to diffuse the situation before they were summoned out to start answering even more questions, “There <i>are</i> WRO offices in Edge, you could always-” </p>
<p>“Aww hell, I didn’t mean it like that, don’t need to panic,” Barret clapped a hand over his shoulder, warm and solid and comforting even as he tried to find his balance, left Reeve wondering how much of the sudden turmoil must have shown on his face, “Just gotta go talk to all these people, is all, and still have no idea what I’m gonna say to my daughter.” </p>
<p>Hesitantly, Reeve put his own hand over Barret’s, watching from the corner of his eye as the security team did a poor job of not listening in, “You know, there’s already a plan in place for high speed rail lines between Edge and Junon. The original surveys were done by Shinra, before they turned all their interest to Mako exploitation...”</p>
<p>“No kiddin’?” Barret gave his shoulder a light squeeze, the start of a smile teasing at the corner of his mouth and making the knot of panic in Reeve’s gut begin to loosen. </p>
<p>He let himself answer with his own small laugh of relief, “International Development expects to break ground within six months - it may even be ready before the hydro-electric stations expected to power it.” </p>
<p>Barret’s grin was real after that, made suddenly clear exactly how much the whole thing had been upsetting him, “Guess you’re stuck with me either way then, huh?” </p>
<p>“I admit I was rather hoping,” Reeve felt himself smile, first a little and then widely as Barret’s arm moved to circle his shoulders, playful and comradely as Reeve found himself being dragged out of the waiting area and into the wings.</p>
<p>The arm might have been friendly, but when Barret turned to him his expression was softer, fonder than that.  </p>
<p>“Me too,” Barret agreed as they reached the stage wings and more television crew rushed forward to begin fitting them with sound equipment, “Now, time to get on the air and let ‘em all know that you’re the cat’s meow.” </p>
<p>Right. He’d almost forgotten that the host was primed to ask him about the mess between Kalm and Wutai. </p>
<p>“The press is going to be the death of me,” Reeve bemoaned just before a young woman slipped a mic above his tie clip and Barret gave him a final slap on the back. </p>
<p>“Makes you nostalgic for when they were just talking about our sex life, huh?”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Status updates and general silliness on twitter @lowflyingidiom</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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